


Flower of Twilight

by Bartkartoffeln, StudioRat



Series: Winds of Twilight [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Bi-Gender Character(s), Canon-Typical Violence, Collaboration, Coming of Age, Culture Shock, Dysphoria, Epic Friendship, Gender Dysphoria, Multi, Survival Training, Teen Angst, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-05-21 02:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14906384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bartkartoffeln/pseuds/Bartkartoffeln, https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudioRat/pseuds/StudioRat
Summary: Direct sequel toSun and Moon.In the winter of their 15th year, Zelda leaves Hyrule to seek advice and comfort from a dear but distant friend when menarche defies all her efforts to refuse it. She disappears into the Gerudo highlands in the guise of Sheik, child of Shadows.Sheik petitions the King of the Gerudo himself for permission to seek their true Name from the Lady of Sands, in the Gerudo tradition. Despite the ongoing war between their countries and the risk of Hylian retaliation if the missing Princess is traced to the desert, he agrees. He hides Sheik in the house of one of his most loyal subjects, ordering that they be prepared for the Trials in absolute secrecy.





	1. The King's Orders

**Author's Note:**

> Setting:  
> Winds of Twilight, roughly a week after [Sun and Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6565528), but many years before the events of [Sun’s Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5363957).
> 
> Note:  
> This adventure is (another) grand experiment in collaborative storytelling. Zelda/Sheik is written by [Bartkartoffeln](http://bartkartoffeln.tumblr.com/), and the Gerudo by [StudioRat](https://studiorat.tumblr.com/).

Zelda stared into the cup that spread warmth through her fingers. The contents tasted like raspberry leaf and ginger, undoubtedly a luxurious mixture in this wild desert. Yet Nialet brought her pot after pot of the stuff since she’d arrived, the sweetened with some rich savory thing she didn't know, but which tasted heavenly on her tongue. And about a hundred times better than the tiny cup of green willow cordial Nialet gave her on the first night. She savored every sip, and was so very thankful, for the tea soothed the lingering pain in her abdomen.

She leaned back into the nest of cushions, deep in thought. After she had taken Ganondorf's hand - it seemed to become a thing between the two of them - he’d led her onto a magical road, dark and twisted, with ghostly figures looming everywhere. He warned her not to let go nor to even look about, so she'd clung to his hand like a child and fixed her gaze on his wide, strong back.

She tried to look strong and fearless before the Gerudo women in this walled villa, but she was almost certain Nialet at least had seen through her at first glance. They had all taken care of her in every possible way, and it had become clear the mistress of the house would allow no objections to her hospitality. So Zelda let them take her filthy clothes, let them bathe her and oil her hair, braiding the sides back and winding it all into a high horsetail bound with wide gold and sapphire ribbons.

The bath was a thing of wonder, entirely unexpected, an enormous rectangular pool set into the floor with fountains on three sides, shaped like flowers. Afterwards, Nialet even helped her bind her chest again. The underthings they gave her were blissfully soft, protected by felted cotton necessities. Her firstblood finally seemed to let up, just as Varesh promised her it would, but she was sorely tempted to steal a bag of Gerudo-style linens and supplies for when the blood came again. She couldn’t imagine why any Hylian woman would continue with the dreadful harnesses and aprons and rough pile-woven wool if they only knew how the Gerudo managed their own cycles.

Zelda slumped deeper into her pile of cushions, dressed in twilight-blue wide pants and a matching fitted kaftan woven with little stars all over. The pants were far too long, but they had a clever little drawstring in the hem, so she could cinch it up under her knees and let it balloon down from there. Varesh helped her roll and pin her sleeves up too, laughing the whole time about their ‘golden ilmaha.’

Now that the sun reached for the western sands, the wind picked up her pace, and Zelda was glad of the enormous, obnoxiously striped vicuña mantle Nialet had given her the first night. She would never have freely chosen a garment with both ochre and cerulean splashed together directly, but even behind thick adobe walls with tripod braziers stationed at either side of the door and the shutters bolted, night devoured every smallest crumb of the day’s heat.

One of the women would summon her to dinner soon, though she didn’t really feel hungry yet. She’d stuffed herself halfway stupid on the first night, and promptly fallen asleep, missing her only chance to properly thank her friend for his generosity - and discretion. For the first time in her life, she didn’t have to be Princess. She didn’t have to be proper and graceful and wise. She could slouch and slurp her tea and get crumbs in her bed and blister her fingers trying out the beautiful Gerudo recurve bows of laminated horn and gilded steel.

For the first time in maybe forever - or at least since her mother died - she felt safe and understood. They called her ilmaha, or they called her Sheik, and they asked no difficult questions of their Hylian guest. They let her keep her own counsel if she pleased, and they let her help with a little cooking and cleaning and mending, and even let her walk Asifad this afternoon while the others cleaned his corner of the courtyard. And nobody told her to smile more, or that she _couldn’t_ do tasks for herself, or that she shouldn’t have set out for Gerudo Valley so terribly unprepared.

_Where might Ganondorf be? I haven't seen him, since the Varesh lady wanted to talk to him at dinner - goddess, was it three nights ago now?_

It was still unbelievable that she had been corresponding with the very King of Bandits himself without realizing it. How could she be that dense? Who else could know so much about every possible topic but someone with the benefit of a royal education? Who else would dare argue with the Crown Princess? Who else could possibly write to her faithfully, even when their countries battled for control of this or that border town? Who else but the King would _keep_ writing, in spite of a deep and abiding contempt for every aspect of Hylian culture?

She sighed. Stared at the hand he held so tenderly when he rescued her from her own foolishness, and carried her away to this oasis. She wished he would return to hold it now too, for the knowledge that she could not stay for long lay heavy on her heart.  
  
_I have been gone for nearly a week now. Impa surely has tracked my steps to the Dragon's Mouth at least. If they think for a moment the Gerudo kidnapped me, Father will launch another war, winter or not._

Nialet rattled the bone-and-bead curtain before entering fully, her arms laden with blankets. How many did she think were necessary? The enormous sleeping platform with its heavy white curtains strung directly from the roof-beams above was already drowning in cushions and blankets, to say nothing of the other furnishings in the room. Every bit was carved or painted or both, and there were rugs everywhere. Rugs under rugs, even.

Did all Gerudo live so richly? Or was Nialet some kind of noble in their culture? A relative of the royal family? Even the servants here wore bright jewelry and curved knives at the small of their backs.

“That had best be the last cup in the pot and not the one you were brooding over a mark ago,” she said by way of greeting.

No one talked to Princess Zelda like that. No one dared. Even Impa wrapped her rebukes in deference and flattery.

But she wasn't Zelda here. She was only Sheik ilmaha Karsooda, a common warrior-mage in training, distinguished only in that she was somehow inexplicably a guest by order of the King.

She lifted the lid of the pot carefully. “All empty,” she answered in her awkward Gerudo accent. She hoped with practice she might sound less ridiculous. “It’s very delicious.”

Nialet snorted, dropping the blankets on the corner of the sleeping platform. She answered in rolling, accented Hylian. “Whoever had charge of your education should be whipped soundly. And this tender sprout, I am to make ready for full Trials. In a single winter.”

Zelda frowned and sighed. “I’m not _that_ tender, really. And I can never learn proper Geldo, if you always talk to me in Hylian.” With a dreadfully unprincessly pout, she crossed her arms over her chest.

Had Nialet really said ‘in a single winter’? She couldn’t stay this long! Blood and death would surely rain on her hosts if she didn’t return to the castle soon. Oh, why had she even run-? How could she ever have thought she could slip away without notice? She had to talk to Ganondorf. Hopefully he’d grant her another audience before Impa found her.

“The night only sharpens her claws as yet,” she said, preparing a second pot of tea. Still speaking Hylian. “By order of the King, there is to be no question that you understand what I must teach you. Time enough for schooling your tongue when you have found your Name.”

She wanted to protest. After ‘found your Name’ was after the winter _and_ whatever would be necessary to claim a Name. But she couldn’t say anything. Her being here was suspicious enough, and it was not Nialet’s fault ‘Dinauru’ gave such orders. Oh _why_ had she asked Ganondorf for permission to attempt the Trials?

“I can play hide and seek in that pile of blankets, and I bet you wouldn’t find _me_ for quite a time,” Zelda remarked instead with a forced smile. “I’ll surely feel warm tonight.”

Nialet snorted. “Lady grant you do - for at dawn your idle holiday ends. I must know how much you have to unlearn before I can teach you anything.”

“Then I guess we must do as he wishes,” she murmured in her own tongue again. “Will he return before - that is, does your King often visit here?”

“What a question from our fair ilmaha. Among us, only the boldest vai dare wonder after the appointments of the Sun’s Ray,” said Nialet with raised brow, folding herself onto cushions opposite the low table from her.

Or in other words: Do not ask after the king and his business.

_Well, of course he cannot leave aside his duty just because I barged in on him. Friends or not._

She would have to be patient. So. She bowed, hands folded in the manner of the sheikah. “Thank you for everything, Nialet avadha Davayu. I will do my best to master your challenges.”

“Of _that_ I hold no doubt. But you are not of the People,” said Nialet, lacing her strong fingers together over her raised knee. “Even with our help, the Lady of Sands may well refuse you, and then what will you do, child of shadows?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t actually - I didn’t know about the Trials at all, when I fled my home,” said Zelda softly. Morning couldn’t come fast enough. At least she would be distracted from other problems, then. “I just - ran. And then your King found me, and I never expected mercy from - that is, he was very kind.”

“Indeed,” said Nialet, drawing out the word with sardonic flair. “Our Kings are rather different from yours. Perhaps your first lesson begins tonight after all. Never forget the Great Ganondorf wears the War Crown as well as the Serpent.”

Thinking of her own father and thinking of Ganondorf, Zelda couldn’t but agree silently. She knew the kings of Hyrule by name and beard, and it was simply impossible even one of them was remotely close to being as impressive as Ganondorf.

 _Maybe as serious-looking as him._ She almost grinned at that thought.

Instead, Zelda studied Nialet’s face and let her words sink in. The War Crown. She couldn’t even imagine what it meant to lead a war. Really lead, not only hear reports and sit in a cushioned chair over tea while generals droned on about numbers and provincial villages and probabilities. The War Crown sounded not at all like something you wore while idling in a castle.

And the Serpent Crown? Serpents were symbols of wisdom, sacred to Nayru. However, the Gerudo had their own culture, and she would never know about the meaning of anything for sure without asking.

“What do they stand for, the War Crown and the Serpent Crown? What... burdens come with wearing them?” she asked.

“When a prince is given to us by the Lady of Sands, he wears the sign of the ancestors on his skin to prove the spirits accept his claim. Even so, he must still undertake a Trial to prove his mastery of  each of the Virtues he would rule. When the council of elder mothers agree he has proved his knowledge, and the Exalted Rocs speak also in favor of his endurance, he undergoes the trial for the Serpent Crown, sitting as High Chief until summer solstice,” said Nialet. She grinned to herself, idly toying with a bracelet. “If he rules a year with benevolence and swiftness as well, he is celebrated among us as a true avatar of Storm. But a Hylian ilmaha would not find those ‘burdens’ of any particular interest.”

Zelda tilted her head a little, not quite sure if she should be offended. If she wouldn’t find those burdens of any particular interest, she wouldn’t have asked.

 _But I’m a Hylian and a guest.. Maybe I first have to earn trust to get answers_ , she thought. What she _did_ learn from Nialet’s words was, that Ganondorf passed a few very serious trials.

What trials did she pass so far?

History lessons of sometimes doubtful content, how to smile prettily, and how to pray correctly. How to weave, and dress, and dance, and master the high art of complimenting courtiers and nobles without angering any of them.

Zelda pulled up her knees, her feet resting on the edge of the sleeping platform, wrapping her arms around her legs. She was proud of her knowledge, of her formidable grades, yes. But the one thing she was most proud of were her Sheikah training successes.

And those might be taken from her, now that she bled.

“I find more of interest than you think,” she pouted a little. “And I’ll train hard to be seen by the Lady of Sands. You’ll see.”

She put her chin forward a little, but the challenge was not towards Nialet. It was for everyone who said princesses weren’t made for fighting.

Nialet coughed, a suspicious little twist at the corner of her lips. “You will have to. Among us, _every_ ilmaha faces the trial of the Sands. We train our children for this from the time they begin to walk. And by the order of the King, you will also face the trial of the Exalted Sun, and the labyrinth of the Moon.”

Zelda paled, but only a little. Her thoughts raced. Three trials, and so little time to train! What if Impa found her first? What if she didn’t _have_ one winter? By the gods, even a whole winter was not that much time!

“I have no time to lose then!” she declared. “Training starts tomorrow, right? Thank you for your company, Nialet avadha Davayu. But I must sleep now.”

Zelda took off her soft slippers and wiggled under the mountain of blankets and cushions. “Good night,” she said, her voice muffled by the layers of cloth around her.

Nialet laughed, rising with fluid grace. “Dream sweetly, ilmaha Karsooda, for tomorrow night I promise you will be too tired to dream at all.”

 

~~**\-- o - O - o --** ~~

 

The twilight roads trembled and twisted, disturbed by magic on the border and the scattered energy of failed experiments deep in the sands. Ganondorf sharpened his will, sweeping the hungry spirits and diminished guardians out of his way. He knew the habits of shadows well, and the paths between every fortress and shrine and oasis knew him.

Even so, he felt every contest a hundredfold when he stepped onto mundane sand again. And not merely because Nialet was waiting for him, Asifad’s reins in her fist.

“You anticipate me,” he said, clenching his teeth as he fought to school his breath.

“It is well the moon rises full tonight, O My King,” she said. “I can spare two of my archers to attend you, no more.”

“I do not require-” he began.

“If the border is to remain quiet this winter, it is better that the might of the Sun’s Ray shines with all the fury of summer,” she said with a shrug.

“What have you heard? Your scouts have picked up traces-?” Ganondorf pitched his voice low, drawing a subtle hear-not spell around them.

“Nothing, yet. But the Hylian ilmaha is nobleborn, so we will soon, even here. Go on - he is rested and warmed up for a good run,” said Nialet, nodding toward the moon-silvered shadows of the eastern highlands.

“Hn,” said Ganondorf, staring at the high walls of the little oasis villa. “So our guest has confided in you.”

Nialet laughed, and Asifad lipped at her hair, seeking to reclaim the center of attention as always. “Sheik confides in no one. They are merely arrogant, ignorant, willful, and spoiled as only a highborn youth can be.”

“Hn. Even so. It is - important that they survive the Trials,” said Ganondorf, folding his hands behind his back and fidgeting with one of his green garnet rings. He could summon the rest of the set easily enough - but would Zelda be too proud to make use of it? Would her education even have covered such things?

Nialet raised a brow, scratching under Asifad’s jaw before answering. “My king desires that I transform a tender glass-house blossom into an ironroot thorn, so it shall be done.”

Ganondorf weighed her dry words, considering the tools in his private armory. _Should_ he give Zelda an advantage in the Trials? Maybe a talisman to guard their pale skin from the desert heat. Or a thunderspear to tip the scales in their favor if they are surprised by a feral lizal or ravening moldorm? “How much time do you need?”

“To unravel the damages of their prior education _and_ render them fit to attempt the Trials of Sun, Moon, _and_ Star? Seven years,” said Nialet casually, thrusting the reins at him again. “Their ears are closed to any wisdom that strays from the narrow confines of their book-learning. They are beyond reckless with their health. Headstrong. Self-absorbed. Obsessed with mastery and magic.”

Ganondorf snorted, covering her hand with his own. “As was I when I faced the Trial of the Eight.”

“But _you_ are King,” said Nialet, shaking her head.

“Hn,” said Ganondorf, bowing slightly to kiss her brow. Asifad snorted in disdain - he did not approve of anyone getting attention ahead of him. “Will Varesh be staying with you?”

“As my King wills it,” she answered with an arch look that sorely tried his discipline.

“I will return in seven days,” he said, tracing the strong line of her jaw with his thumb. He did not want to leave at all, but he _had_ noticed disturbances in the currents of magic across the canyon. If the scorpion had tracked her Princess to the border already, he would need to deal with her directly, and soon. “You will find the case of summerstone jewels under your bed. Use them as you think best. I will see that the Hylians are - distracted, meanwhile.”

“Sheik will not be ready in ten times that long,” grumped Nialet, withdrawing her hand from his.

“Of course not,” said Ganondorf, tipping her chin so she would bring her gaze up to meet his. “Even so, I will want a report - and _you_ may perhaps crave a rest from arguing with your student.”

Nialet licked her lips. “And perhaps my King does not need to survey the border _precisely_ now.”

“You did offer me the _use_ of _two archers_ ,” he returned with a sardonic grin.


	2. Day 1, Morning

Zelda moaned a little when Nialet woke her. Peeking from out under the blankets, she couldn’t make out any daylight in the room. Of course not, there were shutters and they were closed.

_But it doesn’t feel as if it it’s dawn yet. Maybe just my imagination?_

Shivering, Zelda slipped from the bed, not wanting to let Nialet wait too long. Despite the firerock braziers and the closed shutters, she could feel the coolness of the night seeping through the walls. Nialet lit a single lantern for her, slipping through the bead-and-bell curtain to wait in the public half of the room.

Zelda donned her - thankfully, now clean and repaired - Sheikah garments fast, wishing for something warmer. She wouldn’t say it out loud, though. Her host obviously already thought she was a tender person. While she didn’t know what challenges she’d face through the day, she did not want to be seen as the fragile princess!

She followed Nialet outside. They crossed the garden courtyard swiftly, Zelda gritting her teeth against a chill that didn’t seem to bother her host at all. _I wonder how early it is._

Zelda was glad that their destination was a small room with simple furnishings instead of something outside. She could have wished for an _actual_ door though, and not merely a bright rug, pinned back from the doorway, letting in all the cold. Inside, other Gerudo were sitting on colorful mats on the floor.

She chose an empty mat, greeting the women in their language, waiting for some explanation as to what this very early gathering could be. Some nodded in return. No one spoke, but when Nialet took her place in the front row of mats, one of the women at the end of the row took a smooth stick and struck a metal bowl on the cushion at her side.

What followed that sweet sound was an hour of exercises that forced her to bend and bow and stretch in the most twisted ways. No one bothered to tell her what to do - all of the Gerudo women seemed to know the patterns already, and she tried to follow their lead as much as possible.

Zelda would have never believed how hard _bending_ could be! Soon she was sweating, holding back moans of pain, asking herself how her training never prepared her for something like this. Her stomach began to grumble aloud long before the woman at the corner mat struck the bowl again - she was so hungry!

Silently, she followed Nialet after the stretching session back through the garden courtyard and into the opposite wing of the sprawling adobe manor, looking forward to a solid breakfast. Nialet sat in the middle of one heavy couch, picking up a little skewer-bound book from the nesting inlaid tables filling the middle of the space. She seemed to forget her guest for the moment, so Zelda perched on the opposite couch, her toes barely grazing the rug beneath, and waited.

Varesh joined them only long enough to deliver two glasses of a greenish something, her bright hair tied back loosely. She smelled of baking bread and a teasingly familiar spice, and her cheeks were bright from heat or exertion or both. Or maybe she was only amused at the expense of their guest, for Zelda couldn’t help but regard the green beverage with suspicion. It smelled earthy, but also faintly of fruit, and the consistency looked thick but strange. Shooting a quick glance at Nialet - who ignored her completely - she bravely put her hands around the cup and took a sip.

It wasn’t - bad. It was okay. Whatever was in this drink, a little less green would have been nice. It seemed vaguely gritty, and an odd flavor lingered after, but she could totally drink this. Maybe this was a test, or maybe this was some secret training drink recipe only the Gerudo knew.

So she gulped down the whole cup, glad of it blunting the edge of her hunger. “This is a strange drink to start the day, but it’s good. Maybe a _little_ green,” she said, wondering what kind of breakfast would follow this.

Nialet snorted, chasing her own green drink with a cup of the incredibly strong spice tea the Gerudo drank.

There was nothing else on Varesh’s tray, and when she took the empty cups away again, she didn’t return. There was nothing on the tables but another book and a shallow tray of smooth stones dyed with ochre and woad. No bread or eggs or anything. Just this cup with green juice.

Zelda paled, realizing she didn’t smell anything resembling breakfast, either. Only that faint perfume on Varesh - which could as easily be from passing through the sheltered courtyard where they made meals for the compound as from actually cooking anything.

_This can’t be everything, right?_

Nialet closed her book with a vague grunt. “It is time we see how much you have to unlearn. Come - the quarry delivery will have arrived by now.”

Zelda stared at Nialet as it became clear that this was indeed everything there was for breakfast. Now she regretted dearly not having eaten dinner the night before. She pressed her lips together and slipped from the couch.

_What did she mean with ‘unlearn’? Not all of my education was folderol! Surely some of it will be valuable for these trials, right?_

She didn’t voice any complaint. Ganondorf had entrusted her to Nialet, and she trusted him. Surely the Gerudo woman knew what she did, even though ‘quarry delivery’ didn’t sound like fun at all.

_Or training._

Zelda followed Nialet outside, where the temperature thankfully had risen a little. She suspected that soon she’d long for the coolness of the evening. Mentally, Zelda tried to harden herself for whatever would come today.

But as they walked through the bright desert morning, a distracting hint of that same spicy warm scent seemed to waft from Nialet’s skin also. It reminded her all the stronger of her hunger, and magnified her emptiness when she saw the sand sledge heaped with stone.

 _I should have eaten dinner_.

“When you have laid your stone in the place I show you,” said Nialet, hefting a rock of her own. “You will _run_ back for the next.”

Zelda watched Nialet’s muscles bulge. She straightened some more, while her stomach sounded a rolling thunder she couldn’t suppress. Before her emotions could tip in a direction she certainly didn’t need right now, she stepped closer fast and closed her fingers around the edges of a stone, lifting it.

It was heavy.

_No, hunger is nothing. Missing one meal won’t make me weak! I am Sheik now, and Sheik needs to be strong._

Zelda followed Nialet, her spice-scent tickling Zelda’s nose again. With the heavy rock in her hands the way seemed longer than it actually was. Still, she felt relieved when the Gerudo put down her rock and pointed out where Zelda should lay down hers.

After, she ran back for the next.

The sun rose a little more for every rock Zelda put down, every run she did back to the cart. Soon, her back ached from straining against the weight of the rock, and her arms from carrying it.

Run. Lift. Carry. Put down.

_Hunger? Who cares about that. The exertion has chased off my hunger for now._

She tried to let her mind go blank, willing her body to just function. The rising heat made her dizzy.

_Water though. Water would be glorious._

Finally, she stopped, looking to Nialet with pleading eyes. “May I have some water, please?”

Nialet looked down at her with raised brow. “Thirst sharpens the will as whetstone sharpens steel. But you are Hylian - this discipline is a new to you, yes?”

_As if it is a weakness to be Hylian._

Somehow, the words stung. Her pride _almost_ made her retort something snippy. It was not weakness to know the limits of one’s body. With the heat and the hard work, she would soon just topple over and be like the rocks she laid on the ground.

She swallowed her pride.

“I’m afraid my thirst only sharpens a headache at the moment,” Zelda answered as calmly as she could.

“Go then to the oasis well,” said Nialet, jerking her chin toward the stone pavilion guarding a natural spring. “Your work will wait for you here.”

With a nod, Zelda ran towards the oasis well. She drank careful little sips, relishing the feeling of liquid on her tongue.

_How amazing it would be to just fall into the water._

Better not dwell on that thought. There was still so much work to do, and if she only thought about rest - or a bath - she would never be able to follow this through.

So she ran back to the cart, hefted another rock, and started walking.

 

**\-- o -- O -- o --**

 

Zelda lost count of how many rough-hewn slabs she carried to the opposite side of the compound somewhere after twenty. Sweat poured from her skin, and her tongue grew so dry it seemed ready to shrivel up and blow away when she gasped for breath under another heavy stone. There simply wasn’t any good way of carrying them. Each proved either too wide or too heavy or too sharp to find an easy grip. Yet for every rock she moved, Nialet carried two and fit all three of theirs into the low drystone wall dividing the far outer court.

Nialet released her from the drudgery when Varesh brought out a tray of little lidded clay pots. Nialet said something low and stern to the other woman, but Varesh returned her a soft smile and made her take a jar anyway. Nialet snorted, leaning against a sun-worn column to pry off the lid with her long nails.

Zelda was grateful for the break. Her pride suffered a lot today. She’d trained before, and she’d always given her best, pushing herself to the limits - but carrying rocks brought her past those faster than any exercise she’d known so far.

Not a good feeling.

Nevertheless she managed a shaky but warm smile when Varesh came over to her. The woman offered her a jar also, and a little reed tool to open it with. She leaned close, speaking her Gerudo words carefully. “The golden ilmaha has never seen our winter? Better if you dress like me, but you drink up, yes? And remember, eight. Yes?”

Thanking the woman in Gerudo, Zelda accepted the reed tool and the little clay pot. She would ask Varesh tonight if she could borrow a garment that was more suited to this climate. “This is my first time here, yes. Your winter is indeed still foreign to me. Thank you for your advice, I can remember eight.”

_Should I ask what ‘eight’ means?_

Glancing sideways to Nialet, she decided to better drink whatever was in the clay pot before her Gerudo instructor decided break was over.

Prying open the thing, she glanced at the murky, sharply aromatic liquid inside. “What is this exactly?”

Varesh smiled, patting her arm. “Drink. It will make you strong for what comes.”

 _It_ proved to be a concoction of citrus juice heavily infused with sharp, hot spices, and a familiar earthy sweetness. It also made her cough. Nialet rolled her eyes at them and turned away to confer with a veiled woman wearing pale purple.

The spice-infused juice still tingled on her lips and tongue when Zelda put the empty clay pot back on the tray. Truly, Hylian cooking seemed utterly boring in comparison to what she had eaten and drunk in Nialet’s house. She wondered if there was a possibility to learn some of the recipes - only maybe _not_ the one of the green drink.

Varesh glanced over her shoulder, and somehow stumbled a little. She laughed, fumbling to rebalance the tray, mumbling something breathless about the wind. She turned her back to Nialet, and under the shadows of the tray she pressed an unexpectedly heavy bundle of plain cloth into Zelda’s hands.

As soon as her fingers closed on it, Varesh winked, and without another word, left.

Zelda smiled, pressing the cloth bundle against her chest. Varesh’s words were a strong hint more challenges were coming. And the day was still long. She glanced towards Nialet. _Is there time to have a look inside?_

She didn’t want Varesh to get in trouble for her kindness. Zelda whispered a common cantrip, weaving a few stronger magic words in it to let the bundle vanish.

_For now._

Nialet shooed her back to work - but by the third stone a flock of veiled women in purple came pouring out of the compound. Every one of them seized a rock or even two, laughing among themselves as they balanced the weight on their heads. Within moments the sledge was emptied, and Zelda was left trudging through their dust with her own burden.

A little dumbfounded, Zelda watched the other Gerudo finishing the tedious work she and Nialet had started. All of them were so strong, carrying rocks seemed to be nothing more than a warm up for them.

Nialet helped her to fit the stone into the wall directly, and gave her another small jar of the same spiced lemonade. As soon as that was gone, Nialet handed her a shoulder harness with two heavy yellow clay amphorae.

“The archers sent word the lamps are low. Climb the towers, and see they are filled before the hour of madness,” said Nialet. “Oh - and don’t touch the doors on the second terrace. You’ll need your fingers for target practice tonight.”

Zelda shouldered the amphorae, counting the towers. There were eight. Eight very tall towers with several terraces. And she had to get up there and refill lamps. For _eight_ towers. Before lunch.

_And after, there is target practice waiting._

Zelda’s heart sank. The tower before her had no door on the ground level, and only storerooms abutting it. Rubbing her eyes, she made her way to the wall. Stairs lead up to the walk, and from there she could reach the first tower.

_Surely there will be a door I simply cannot see from the garden, and stairs inside the tower. A door. A ladder. A rope._

When she reached the end of the stairs, there was no rope. No ladder either.

Pressing her lips together, Zelda looked up. The adobe coating the stone was thin in many places, making it possible to find shallow grips throughout the wall.

“So, climbing it is,” she murmured. She liked climbing, had always been good at it. With additional weight to imbalance her, however, Zelda almost feared the climb.

_What if I fall?_

Hesitantly, she put her already strained fingers in one of the better holds she could find.

_It’s not so far to the first terrace. Sheik could do this._

Bracing herself, Zelda put her foot in a shallow hold.

 _Don’t think, just climb_.

Making it to the first terrace wasn’t as bad as she thought. The second, however made her muscles burn, the dust hurt in her throat and the shallow holds made her fingers ache. When she finally pulled herself up, she collapsed for a moment, the heat from the sun and the walls seemed to singe her face. In the middle of winter.

_What torment must it be to refresh the tower lamps in high summer-!_

With shaking hands, she filled the lamps she found on this terrace and dragged herself to begin another stretch of the climb.

Somehow she found the strength to get to the third terrace. There, she knelt on the shadow of the ledge and cried.

_How am I supposed to do this? Eight towers before noon, when I can barely manage one?_

Many, many tears later, Zelda finally reached the top level of the tower, filling the eighth and final lamp under the amused watchfulness of the archer there. She had trouble keeping the amphorae steady, but the archer didn’t offer to help.

She did, however, offer a waterskin. And she flipped back the heavy, faded rug to reveal a trap door to the room below.

“Not bad for a Hylian,” said the veiled archer in pale purple garments. Her kohl-lined greengold eyes creased at the corners, and her voice smiled. “You get _all_ the lamps? You take this way down, yes?”

‘This way’ included a ladder, and the room at its foot held a single bunk built directly into the wall, a barrel full of spears, a rack of heavy mantles and another of bright pennants. Along one wall, she saw a whole line of crates of arrows: broadheads, firerock tips, poisoned shatterstone, and one sealed crate marked only with a red symbol she’d never seen before. The red ochre paint outlined a central horizontal bar linking two opposing crescents. Inside their arc, two dots. Above and below, a squashed sort of diamond shape. Somewhat like the Gerudo heraldry so far - except that these seals had a third crescent stretching around the top half, with eight little triangles radiating from it.

_Like a halo - Nialet referred to Ganondorf by the title Sun’s Ray though, hadn’t she?_

Zelda forced herself to return to her task, opening the single door out to the terrace. _I thought there was one in each face of the square tower, but perhaps I am remembering the poisoned false doors of the second terrace?_

The way down was not as much torture, but still hard. Knowing this only had been one tower of eight was downright demoralizing. Zelda moved sunwise around the wall to the second tower, resting at each terrace as before. But here, no one waited at all. She could clearly see the archers in the flanking towers, but neither looked at her.

So, she sat down for a moment out of the sun and wind, summoning the little bundle Varesh had given her. She unwrapped the soft brown shawl carefully, and in the center found a second squareish bundle of waxed linen, tied with string. Inside this, two glorious slices of toasted flatbread, slathered with hot yellow mustard, a fistful of radish sprouts, lightly toasted stamella shroom, two runny eggs and half a green butterfruit, sliced thin.

It was one of the strangest meals she’d ever eaten, and it was absolute heaven.


	3. Day 1, Afternoon

Zelda finally finished refilling all sixty-four lamps when noon was long forgotten. The sun glared its orange fury at a most punishing angle, and yet passing through the long shadows within the compound chilled her to the core. Nialet met her at the foot of the eighth tower, and showed her where to leave the empty amphorae.

Afterwards, they returned to the little room they’d begun with this morning, but this time the central table held a tray with two tall glasses of buttermilk - one half empty, one full - and two plates - one empty and the other holding a slice of toasted flatbread with a half measure of the same delights as Varesh’s gift.

_In Hyrule, beginning a meal before all guests sat at the table would be an unpardonable rudeness. Even - perhaps especially - if they were late._

Zelda ate, and said nothing.

Nialet left her to her own thoughts, seemingly absorbed in her book until the evening bells rang. Every day, an hour before twilight, veiled women in purple struck the great brass bell on the roof of the central building with their spears. No one ever mentioned what it meant - not that she talked to many of the women here beyond simple greetings - and until now the bell had marked no particular change in the activity of the compound.

Today, its song stirred Nialet from her reading. She drained the last dregs of her buttermilk and rose with the same efficient grace as all the Gerudo seemed to embody.

“It is time,” she said simply, and led her to a small armory off the main garden to select a bow.

_Time for what?_

The food and the rest had been a bliss, only now she also felt the exhaustion in her bones. The toasted stamella shroom in the flatbread was probably the only thing giving her the strength and willpower to rise.

Then she remembered Nialet speaking of target practice, and sure enough their way ended in an armory. The bows here were simple yet efficient. Zelda admired the craftsmanship. Any other day, she would have been delighted. Today her fingers were aching from carrying roughly hewn rocks and from climbing eight tall towers.

Silently, she chose a bow that was as close as to what she was used to as possible, and followed Nialet outside again.

The first marks were easy ones set on poles around the courtyard gardens: stationary wooden hoops with heavy waxed cloth stretched over and sawdust packed inside. Some sat directly on wooden poles or tripods, some on a counterweight beam, and others hung from ropes between the interior buildings.

When she’d emptied her quiver among these, Nialet led her to the top of the wall. She was given more stationary targets arrayed below at first, and then enchanted clay pots. She emptied another quiver on these - and then Nialet whistled, shrill and unbelievably _loud_.

The gates opened with a rumble and the bellow of deep brass horns. Six riders in pale red garments poured out of the compound, vast woven shields strapped to their backs. Their haunting cries carried on the rising wind, and they trampled a great dust cloud just out of bowshot.  
  
Nialet said nothing, but only handed her a fresh quiver of blunt arrows, dipped in some phosphorescent dye.

_Moving targets. At twilight._

Now that was a challenge she’d have loved, if not for her tortured fingers. Zelda looked at the riders, then the arrow in her hand. Her fingers _hurt_.

She nocked the arrow, closed her eyes, drew the bowstring to her ear.

The arrow missed the target, but at least it didn’t hit the horse or the rider.

Pressing her lips together, she fought down the rising impatience.

_Breathe, nock, aim, release._

This time she hit one of the target shields.

The dust wafting over made it even more difficult to see the targets, yet she managed another two hits. None of them bullseye.

When her quiver was empty, Zelda had managed to hit all six targets once, two of them twice. Fingers shaking, she lowered her bow slowly.

“Hn,” said Nialet, and turned away to signal one of the veiled. A single note from her horn, and the riders sang out, rearranging themselves into a single column to cool down their mounts with a circuit of the compound. “The court of the saiev should be ready by now. You will mark your opponent twice with each rod.”

Zelda looked at Nialet, throat suddenly tight. _What does she mean, ‘mark the opponent with twice’? Court of saiev? After this whole day, was there still another challenge to pass?_

A little pale, she just nodded. They went back to the armory, returning bow and quiver in exchange for a rod that looked like a sword. Nialet gathered another like it, but cut twice that length, and another slender one as tall as Ganondorf himself.

She tried to tell her hands to stop shaking, while they were walking to ground level. The fabulous smell of food didn’t make it easier to accept that after all this, she _still_ wasn’t done. _I asked for this, right? To do the trials, to claim a name in the Gerudo tradition?_

She was not allowed to complain. If Ganondorf heard it, he would laugh at her.

And yet, her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

  


**\-- o -- O -- o --**

  


The sweet perfume of roasting meat tormented her through the torchlit sparring match. Nialet said nothing about her performance against the red veil, but her bruises from the sparring staves said enough already. When the great bell rang, and the purple veils sealed the compound gates against the onrushing night, at last, Nialet released her.

Zelda wanted nothing more than to hide in her room and sleep. However, that lesson she’d learned: don’t go to bed without dinner. She had no doubt the next day would be as hard as this, and it would be stupid not to eat something.

She would have loved to enjoy the company of more Gerudo, maybe even learning more about language and culture on a dinner with them. However, she didn’t want to be the Hylian who failed.

_Is it rude? Is it really acceptable to eat alone in my room, as I have until now?_

Zelda went looking for Varesh, the only other person aside from Nialet she dared ask these questions. When she found her, she tried to speak her most polite Gerudo. “Is it a huge rudeness, wanting to eat apart, Varesh avadha Kharish? The day was hard, I would like to be alone a little.”

Varesh leaned her ample hips against the stone counter, tilting her head in thought. She had a plain cloth thrown over her shoulder, and her hands were covered in grease and course flour. Other Gerudo bustled through the courtyard, carrying baskets and pots and jars of goddess only knows what.

“The ilmaha who eats alone is rare. Unless they are alone because they have stolen, their sisters will ask if they are ill. But my King says you have no sisters to look after you, in the land you are born of?”

Zelda shook her head. “No, no sisters,” she said.

She didn’t tell Varesh about the servants.

Her eyes followed a few of the other Gerudo, before straying to Varesh again. Her heart grew heavy. She didn’t want to be a burden, nor give the other Gerudo more reason to see her as the odd Hylian.

“Not ill. And nothing stolen. Just want to eat and think and sleep.” Zelda noticed that her voice became pleading.

 _One day. They just needed one day of hard training to break my will._ That was ridiculous, making her angry at herself.

Varesh frowned in confusion. “These things we do also with our sisters, and the ilmaha with their elders to guide and guard them in the right ways. Your country is _very_ strange - it is good you have come away to live with us instead. The Great Ganondorf has shown you great favor, and so also we embrace you. It is rare as a Sun Crown flower that the Lady of Sands should give us a Hylian ilmaha.”

“You never have days where you want alone time?” _Was that even possible? Everyone needed alone time now and again!_

“I do not understand you Sheik,” said Varesh with a shake of her head. “Why should you want to be alone _more_ when you have had the misfortune of being alone for so long already? Come, eat with us tonight, and if you grow too tired, I will explain to the avadha that your spirit has yet to heal of wounds from Hyrule.”

Her shoulders sagged. It became clear that eating alone would do no good. Guest or not, it was obviously rude to retreat to her chamber now. She bowed, a little stiff, mostly because she ached everywhere.

“I will eat with your sisters and it is a great honor,” she said, smiling as best as she could.

She had only to follow one of the Gerudo carrying a steaming bowl of spiced meat to find the dining room. Or rather - _rooms_. The carved ironwood doors to the central building all stood open, and the ground floor blazed with lamplight. Every room stood open to the next, making one enormous space out of a dozen smaller ones. Gerudo sat on cushions and rugs everywhere, and though she saw small clusters of women in like colors, there were just as many mixed groups.

None of the seated women or serving women wore veils. They ate and chattered amongst themselves, heaping food from shared platters into small brass and clay bowls, young and old eating with their fingers and bits of torn flatbread.

She did not see any children.

No one spoke to her. A few women glanced her way, but not long. The only nods she even got were from serving women moving past her. Hardly any space lay open at all - but there was a small empty rug among some women in deep purple. A clean - if chipped - clay bowl with a folded white cloth and a tiny silver ewer and bowl for hand washing sat in the middle of it, and the shared platters there were still full. The only other clear space seemed to be beside Nialet - but even as she considered it, Varesh appeared and sat at Nialet’s right hand.

And still, no one greeted her, invited her, guided her. She stood among a hundred or more feasting Gerudo, and yet she was alone. Everyone else seemed to know what she was doing, who she was, where she should sit. But not even the servants deferred to _her_ here.

Whatever ilmaha actually _meant_ , it was clearly _not_ a title of respect.

She approached the women in purple, waiting patiently for a break in their conversation. To her distress, she couldn’t follow their speech at all.

“Please, honored ones,” Zelda began, trying her best to mimic Ganondorf’s rolling accent. “Is this place for me?”

One of the women snorted and fixed her entire attention on her bowl. Another raised a brow at her. After a moment, the woman to the right of the open place gestured to it with a shrug.

So Zelda folded herself awkwardly on the little rug and unwrapped her hands to wash. The women in purple returned to their conversation, and soon after one of the serving women took away the half-empty shared platters and lay down full ones. They didn’t say anything - to her or to the others, and the women in purple didn’t thank them either.

Zelda watched how they ate, and tried to follow their example. The serving women brought a parade of separate platters of roasted mushrooms, bowls of stewed peppers, sizzling iron plates of goat meat, bright pots of diced wintermelon, jars of some kind of sour red vegetable, baskets of sliced toasted flatbread, and shallow dishes of crumbly white cheese mixed with savory herbs. By the time the food she’d scooped into her eating bowl fell to half of what she’d taken, the serving women came back to exchange their dishes again.

The women in purple laughed and talked and ate - _oh how they ate!_ They piled their bowls full and polished them clean with their bread, only to heap them high again. They each consumed as much as four of her ladies-in-waiting might all together on the biggest feasting day. Zelda pushed herself to eat as much as she could. After how hungry she’d been all day she thought it would be easy - but somehow after the third bowl she could barely remember she was supposed to be eating.

The woman to her left nudged her with an elbow and caught her eye when she startled. She didn’t say anything, only nodded at her little eating bowl and then jerked her head toward the open doors - rudeness incarnate at home, but she _was_ still chewing her own food.

Zelda looked around the hall, and found only about half the women remained. Nialet seemed deep in conversation with Varesh, bowed toward one another and many smiles exchanged between bites of their dinner.

The woman on her left nudged her again, setting aside her eating bowl and gesturing towards Zelda’s. Blinking in confusion, she handed it over. The woman nodded and patted her knee - and reached her fingers into Zelda’s surrendered bowl for a piece of meat.

The others giggled at her as she stared at the woman in baffled horror. _These people are incomprehensible-! Taking my plate and eating the leftovers right in front of me?_

She knew the uneaten feast food was distributed among the poor, but that was different. Out of sight. And the servants made pies and such with the leavings, they didn’t just give away half-eaten dinners that had already had someone’s hands all over it.

_Did they?_

The woman to her right patted her other knee and said something about gold. Zelda stammered an apology and excused herself. No one said anything directly to her - and no one stopped her, or bowed to her, or wished her a pleasant evening, or opened the ironwood doors for her to the frigid night, or ushered her out of the cold when she reached the squat building her room was in.

_But I’m not a princess here. Only one girl among many. Exactly as I once wished._

Zelda closed the door to her room and dropped the heavy bar into place behind her for the first time. She stared at the bold weavings, at the bright mosaic tiles, the elaborate fretwork on the glazed window and the double shutters, the precious gems and inlaid shell and polished bone in the furnishings, the luxurious private bath.

As large as this compound sprawled, it simply wasn’t possible even a third of the women at dinner lived in quarters like hers, or end a hard day with the braziers already lit and a brass warming pan tucked into the bedclothes. _Do they treat all guests so well? Why then the indifference at dinner? The harsh and confusing orders all day?_

It didn’t make _sense_.

Zelda sat down on the floor beside the bed, wrapping her arms around her knees. Despite being safe in this luxurious room, she felt lost, even more lost than days ago when she fought the meaning of her first courses.

She wanted to belong, to learn, to be accepted - not as _the princess_ , but as a _person_. Yet no matter where she turned, her golden hair and her upbringing seemed to be in the way.

Varesh had said something about guidance. Guidance would be a nice thing right now. Someone who took her under their wing, explaining the Gerudo culture and how she was supposed to behave.

_Or am I just a nuisance?_

Maybe neither Varesh nor Nialet wanted to deal with a foreigner who knew almost nothing, and while Nialet trained her and Varesh was very kind, that didn’t need to mean anyone wanted her here. For a moment, the urge to run back home became overwhelming.

“That’s nonsense. Just ask. You can’t give up after _one_ day of real training,” Zelda scolded herself, angrily wiping away some tears.

_Of course I couldn’t expect everyone to greet me like a friend. I am Hylian! I have to earn this, somehow. Tomorrow, I’ll ask Nialet. I’ll be humble and ask for guidance._

Zelda stripped off her clothes, washed herself and slipped into the enormous kitten-soft night garments Varesh had given her on the first night. When she was about to shake up her pillow a little, she found clothes someone - _probably Varesh_ \- stashed there.

A full set of Gerudo style sirwal, as well as a cropped tunic and a long vest, wrapped in a rectangular mantle. Gently, she examined everything. Beautifully woven, deeply dyed with precious indigo and delicate woad, embroidered with little curved droplets in palest gray at every hem.

Zelda folded the pieces, laying them on a chair. Her eyes fell upon her own Sheikah style garment. Pressing her lips together, she took it - and threw everything in a brazier. It hurt her physically to see the last thing that she had from home catch fire and burn.

There was no going back now. No running away.


	4. A Message

Ganondorf knelt beside another crude little cairn deep in enemy territory, singing to the fury of the dead. Somewhere east of here - maybe a little north, in the foothills - he expected to find another mass grave. Larger than the others, if he’d read the fragmentary accounts of their last wizard war correctly.

_Let the longeared godsbothering jackasses reap their own bloody harvest for once._

At first he thought he imagined the roc’s cry among the howls of the damned. The opportunistic birds didn’t like to be aloft at this hour, and this wasn’t anywhere near their usual range. Nor could the harsh voices of little Hylian crows be mistaken for their cousins’ hunting scream.

The rising dawn pushed back against his magic, but he managed to set the last seal before the sun could clear the horizon. Chalky bones tumbled back into the dirt and poes sank away into their own shadows - but every twilight hereafter they would rage again, until he or his demise released them.

The roc screamed a third time, and now he saw the dagged shadow arrowing toward him. He stood, thrusting his fist in the air as he whistled to it. Asifad complained, sidling to the end of his tether, and the archers signaled all clear from their positions above.

The annoyed roc buffeted him about the head as she landed, skreeking and bobbing her head with her impatience to have the message tube _off_. He cursed the enormous bird mildly and fed her bits of crumbled meat and suet until she settled enough to actually retrieve the message. He pried the leather tube open with one hand, a little surprised to see the sign of Davayu woven in the tooling.

Better not release the roc until he knew whether he must send a reply by the same road. He pulled the reedpaper free with his teeth. Also sealed with the crest of the Davayu. And encrypted.

_Forgiveness for one who counseled you to overlook the thorns in the blossom. Enough sorrow drives their flight that the fledgeling burned their nestfeathers within one day of your orders._

Ganondorf turned toward the north horizon in silence. One of the archers whistled a question, startling him back to the mundane world, and he could not say with any certainty how much time passed or what thoughts might have occupied his attention while he stood so.

He signaled alert and summons together, nudging the drowsy roc. He returned the empty message tube to its place, sealing it shut with a tiny thread of power in lieu of wax. The roc complained, and he scritched her banded chest until she purred forgiveness. He clicked warning and launched her into the air again. Without specific orders, she would return to her nest at her own pace, recovering from the hard journey to find him. She would hunt or not as she pleased.

The archers saluted.

“Hyrule is a land of plenty,” he said.

The archers exchanged a glance, nudging their rangy mounts closer.

“Green and soft and _rotten_ ,” he said softly, shaking the numbness from his fist. “This province is fat with cattle and red wheat. Half the country eats from her lap.”

The younger one snickered under her veils. “Has the other half no imagination?”

“There are several smaller holdings south of the ridge,” said the elder.

“North,” said Ganondorf with a bitter grin. “The provincial governor owns a large villa a few days’ ride from here. We should tell Hyrule we harvest blossoms from her thornbriar, avadha. It is only polite.”

“Forgive me Sun’s Ray, but such a place must be well guarded,” said the elder after a moment.

“Hn. Doubtless they think so,” said Ganondorf as he pulled himself into the saddle. “We will visit the garrison first, inquire if they’ve any arrows to spare.”


	5. Day 2, Morning

Morning brought only deeper cold than the night before, although when the woman in red veils came to awaken her, the sun was already clear of the eastern highlands. The stranger spoke Hylian with a heavy accent, and the many lines around her amber eyes crinkled with laughter as she helped Zelda adjust the hidden fastenings of sirwal and kurta and vest, and taught her how to drape the mantle for warmth without hindering her movement. A dozen thin ties hid in the deep borders, and one had only to choose a few to wriggle free of the catch-threads to secure the whole arrangement.

“That should do at least a few hours, even scrubbing vats. You have palm butter? You grease your flower-skin good, and put glove and veil over,” said the stranger with a nod. “Varesh will surely have your green soup ready by the time you finish.”

Zelda looked at the veiled face of the Gerudo woman, grateful for the help with the clothes. Otherwise, she’d have struggled with the many ties for sure.

“Thank you, Beytu avadha Saiev. I will do as you say,” she said sternly. 

She was glad someone talked to her. Burning her sheikah clothes had drawn more attention last night than she’d anticipated. Alarm bells, someone banging at her door in the night. 

For that, Zelda felt sorry - and also anxious. The way Nialet had shown up in her room last night to fish the burning garments from the brazier… 

_ Maybe I should have thought more thoroughly about this.  _

It couldn’t be helped. She’d decided to burn her clothes, she’d deal with the consequences. And she still would ask for guidance.

_ After scrubbing the vats.  _

Also, she would apologize for causing trouble, though she certainly was not sorry for burning her Sheikah garment, nor did she regret it. Merely the how.

_ And the getting caught. _

Zelda followed Beytu out of the room. No stretching today, the sun was already too high. Much higher than the day before. She couldn’t but wonder if this was to give her more rest, or if it was punishment. 

For causing a ruckus last night, punishment seemed reasonable. Scrubbing vats sounded pretty much like it, too. 

Beytu showed her how to mix sand and salt and a tiny bit of oil for scouring, and how to cup the damp mixture in a rag, and how to spread the spent mixture out on the burlap drying racks, and where to find the salted whiteroot powder for the next pass. She didn’t really help with the scrubbing itself, but she lingered nearby, leaning against canopy poles and calling out corrections in heavily accented Hylian. 

Zelda asked her to speak Gerudo instead, so she could practice more, but Beytu only shook her head. “King Ganondorf orders this. We learn your tongue many years, you have only one week in ours. More important you understand these things now, understand words later.”

“I was never good with Hylian,” added Varesh in Gerudo, offering her a lidded tin cup, even though her chore wasn’t finished. “A small part of why I am Kharish, and not Saiev or Varan or Falaar. You maybe would understand me even less in  _ your _ words, and I do not remember so many from my lesson days.”

The cup proved to be full of the same cool green slurry as yesterday.

Varesh asked Beytu something in an undertone while Zelda drank her breakfast. They seemed to be debating something - but in the end Beytu’s question was only about boring needlework. Zelda answered honestly - and perhaps unwisely - that she learned seventeen different embroidery traditions before she was twelve, and not only wove but designed the tapestry in her father’s study. Apparently this answer earned her the questionable honor of her next chore: trudging out to skim the retting wallows and join the servants in beating the rotting plants between stones before throwing the mess back in again. And then? She helped them haul fermenting wool from one stone basin to another, where they poured hot lye into the murky water and prodded the sodden mass in a highly specific - and highly  _ annoying _ \- way with long forked poles. 

For an  _ hour _ .

By the time Beytu led her back into the walled compound to scrub pots in the kitchen court, she’d lost any appetite the work might have otherwise aroused. She discovered she was strangely glad she’d scrubbed dye vats first though, because the women here cleaned their brass and iron tools with a similar scouring mixture. The soiled grit they dumped in big clay pots with rope handles. When Varesh pronounced the kitchen tolerable, Zelda helped carry these pots to different burlap racks to dry.

The servants didn’t talk much while they worked - but once they’d settled into their task, they  _ sang _ . Half a hundred different vibrant melodies in a single day, and not one like the music of home. Beytu translated a few for her, little poems about the sun, the wind, the sands. Songs about heroic deeds and mischievous spirits and silly nonsense counting tunes. The ones Beytu did  _ not _ translate seemed no different than the others at first, but something in them seemed to embarrass one or another of the women.

Zelda saw Nialet only from a distance, always in close conference with one of the veiled or a group of servants. Beytu ate with her in the garden when Varesh brought out a tray with the same egg and butterfruit meal as the day before, though she gave Beytu a bowl of extra flatbread wedges and a dish of some creamy sauce and a little bowl of roasted peppers too.

Afterwards, Beytu showed her to a new storage room, full of crates of arrowheads and spools of waxed sinew and good fletching feathers and kiln-hardened arrowshafts. Zelda breathed a sigh of relief at first - she’d learned how to make arrows when she was six years old. 

Beytu, on the other hand, didn’t seem to think she knew anything at all. Only one arrow in three met her standards, but she wouldn’t let Zelda remake her failures. Instead, she sorted these into marked quivers, and carried them with her when the twilight bell rang. Nialet stood on the wall already, beside a pot of luminous dye and a fat quiver of prepared practice arrows. She said nothing, only nodding in greeting.

The gates opened as before, but for five riders instead of six, and their wicker target shields bore not a standard circle, but a weeping sheikah eye.

Zelda stared at the shields, a lump forming in her throat. All day long, she had worked alongside the Gerudo women, learning more about their day, their work and their practices than in all the days before. 

Scrubbing vats and hauling wool might not have been challenging tasks. But she’d enjoyed belonging, if even just a little. 

She’d enjoyed Varesh’s magnificent food, she’d enjoyed hearing the working songs. 

She’d enjoyed having Beytu around, telling her things. 

_ I enjoyed not being a princess - or even Sheik.  _

Now she stared at the weeping sheikah eyes that reminded her almost painfully of Sheik. And Sheik reminded her of the princess. 

Zelda let out a deep breath and nocked the first arrow.

_ To hell with all of that. I’m not a princess here, and I’m not Sheik. I am an ilmaha in training. I am myself. _

With a defiant glare, she aimed for the first weeping Sheikah eye. Her fingers hurt from scrubbing, but it was nothing compared to a day of climbing.

_ Draw, breathe, release.  _

The luminous dye marked the first eye right in the middle. 

She emptied the whole quiver onto the Sheikah eyes, covering them with more luminous paint. When all arrows were gone, she lowered the bow and felt strangely empty. 

“Not bad,” said Beytu. She lifted one of the marked quivers of new arrows. “Dip each one just before you shoot. When this is empty, it’s back to practice bolts, yeah?”

She glanced at Nialet before taking the next quiver. The riders had slowed their pace somewhat, moving in a slow eight formation. Zelda gave her new teacher a shaky smile. “Thank you, Beytu avadha Saiev.”

She dipped the first arrow into the luminous dye. The tips she’d tied weren’t blunted. Confused, she looked at the arrow she was supposed to shoot at the target shields. 

_ This can’t be right. What if I hurt someone? _

Pressing her lips together, she finally tried a few shots - but the arrows didn’t even get close to where they were supposed to, straying left and right without hitting anything except the ground.

Puzzled, Zelda looked at the fletching and tips. From all the arrows in the quiver, in the end only four hit a target shield.

Nialet said nothing, watching the riders with arms crossed instead of looking at her form as her tutors did at home. Beytu on the other hand had no compunction about snickering over particularly wild shots. She handed over a single practice bolt, twirling a second in her fingers.

“At your age, I made the same mistake. Pretty arrows. Centered tips, matched barbs at even spacing,” she said with a snort. “Ilmaha learn to make practice bolts for heavy shaft, or farshot, or fast. Then they have to make pebbletips that hit the mark, before they are ever tying trueshot.”

Nialet grunted, and raised her fingers for a shrill whistle. The riders whooped in answer, shifting into a pattern of wedge-shaped charge and peel away to flanks. They circled back to charge as inverse wedge, as block, riding faster than before.

“Watch their shoulders this time,” suggested Beytu.

“Thank you, Beytu avadha Saiev,” Zelda said, taking the arrow from her hands. She looked at the shaft and the spacing of the barbs, weighed it in her hand for a bit. 

This time, when she nocked the arrow and shot, she hit one of the target shields, if not even close to dead center. Hitting moving targets was much harder, but it was also a challenge that was more fun.

“Kitten. You’re not in Hyrule anymore,” said Beytu, leaning her hip against the wall as Zelda nocked another. “I understand now why you set little fires under your teapots. How could you ever have conversation before your tea is cold when you must thank Harun Sirrah Farmer of Pumpkins and Ellon Housemaster Weaver of Blankets for every smallest courtesy? Ugh. Praise the Three I was born to the Sands.”

“Well, maybe hearing words of advice and having someone talking to me makes me very thankful,” she murmured. Zelda felt a blush creep into her cheeks. She glanced between Nialet’s stern profile and Beytu’s beautiful crinkled eyes. “Yesterday, no one except for Nialet avadha Davayu and Varesh avadha Karish wanted to talk to me. I’m glad you do. Please show me how to make good arrows?”

Beytu made a rude noise, gesturing for her to raise her bow again. “Tomorrow, kitten. You still have these to study, and you spar with pairs tonight. And heavier staves.”

Zelda took two more marks. 

“As to the other… few here speak your tongue well enough to obey the Great Ganondorf, and Varesh courts his displeasure speaking to you at such length in ours. But perhaps he is too fond of her honeyed - er - cakes to punish her. Much.”

Nialet snorted.

“Devilish sweet tooth, our King,” she said. “From the day he could reach the storerooms, he was always stealing treats. Can’t even count how many times I caught ilmaha Murasa with his hands in the honeyglass pots.”

“Saiev,” said Nialet in a tone of warning.

“Piss up a hill,” said Beytu without heat, scratching her ear. “If he isn’t Murasa’s true get, he might as well have been apprenticed twice over with how much trouble he made for all of us when we were young.”

“Nonetheless,” said Nialet, her eyes never leaving the field below. “Slanderous tongues speak treason.”

“Ain’t slander if it's true,” she rejoined crisply. “Besides, what’s he gonna do to  _ me _ ? Whip me? Then I should tell the one about the blackpowder and majir too.”


	6. Day 2, Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies for those of you who stopped by when the chapters were slightly goobered! This is the correct Chapter 6, wherein we see the second half of the second day of training. Enjoy~!  
> -StudioRat

The call to dinner could not possibly sound any sweeter than when interrupting a truly mortifying defeat. Zelda waited for the other women to withdraw before pushing back to her feet. She told herself this was only wise, to give them space. 

In truth, she no longer wished to stand at all, she was so sore. Why were they making  _ her _ fight with dual batons as long as a pitchfork? With heavy, wide staves tall as the Gerudo, who had half again her height? Steel-weighted clubs? Who even fought with such clumsy weapons?

Beytu patted her shoulder in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring fashion. It might have been so, has she not taken three hits near that exact place.

“Not bad, for a Hylian. Come on, before the ten-years hoard all the good stuff,” she said, pointing Zelda in the direction of the central building. 

Everything looked and smelled exactly as the night before, savory and sharp and bright and noisy. Beytu dragged her to a different corner of the open space, farther from the raised platform where Nialet already sat. Beytu unwound her veil, tucking a fold of it in her belt, and hailed a woman in pale purple. The stranger waved back, and gestured to her companions to make room. Two of them wore the same light red as Beytu, and two wore light blue with subtle little checks all over.

The servants brought clean bowls and another washing ewer at once, and one found a fat little cushion for Beytu. Zelda folded herself directly on the rug like the others, and reminded herself not to stare. For some reason, she hadn’t expected Beytu to be  _ old _ . Old _ er _ , yes. But - without the veils, she realized Beytu’s long red hair was stark white at the roots, and her chiseled features heavily lined.

The others looked somewhat older than Nialet, but none as old as Beytu.

They chattered in swift, liquid, cheerful babble, two or more of them at the same impossible moment. Zelda caught one word in five, if that. Most of it seemed to be about the food, and these women cheerfully stole from one another as they ate and talked, even with full platters laid before them. 

Most of the dishes looked the same as before, except tonight the servants also brought a bowl of some bitter grain, soaked in oil and herbs. And - tonight Beytu poured her a glass of red something from a fat clay jar, laying her finger aside of her nose and winking. 

The woman in blue at her left leaned over to whisper in  _ terrible _ Hylian, “Forbid ilmaha. No - bad, majir not for small. Ilmaha steal, yeah? Sneaky-sneak. Good!”

Zelda looked at the woman in blue. She had no clue what she meant, but she heard the word ‘majir’ somewhere before. The conspiratorial look on the faces of the others said she was probably not supposed to drink whatever Beytu poured her.

_ Why would I have to steal it, though? It’s already in my cup.  _

With a shrug, Zelda lifted the cup to her lips and drank. Sweetness covered her tongue, followed by a strange, slightly hot feeling. 

This was undoubtedly alcohol of some sort, most likely wine, though she seldom drank. In the palace, she was always too young for ‘things like this’. On the few occasions she was allowed to drink wine, she didn’t like it. It was sour and nasty. 

This however, this was sweet and heavy. Boldly, Zelda emptied the whole cup.

“Delicious,” she declared in Gerudo. Only then did she realize she just drank without toasting. Blushing, she stared at her cup. “Apologies. I forgot to - bump cups with you.”

She had no idea how to talk about ‘toasting’ in Gerudo. 

The other women giggled, whispering among themselves. The woman on her left snickered. 

“Bumpkips is moonface custom, yeah? Stupid softlanders. Ilmaha is Geldo now, yeah? Sneaky-sneak, shh. Very good.”

Beytu refreshed her cup, chiding the others in their own tongue. “Tsk. Teasing our golden ilmaha for being thirsty. They work hard, and in the green lands this is a victory to be feasting.”

The others giggled harder, and one of them said something about peppers, and another about snakes, but their speech remained hard to follow. Even Beytu spoke the Gerudo tongue with a rolling and blurry sort of cadence that made it difficult to mark out separate words. 

Zelda blushed more. She stared at her majir and watched the whispering women. At least they were entertained. It felt good that they said she was Geldo now. 

_ Sneaky-sneak, yes. I can be very sneaky. _

She wondered how sneaky Gerudo women could be. They were fierce fighters and beautiful warriors, but could they also be quiet as a shadow? Swift and invisible? As an honorary Sheikah,  _ those _ were arts she was trained in.

After taking another sip, she cleared her throat, trying for her best Gerudo. “Bumping cups is something we do, yes. We bump our cups against guest cups and wish happiness and wealth against each other. With  _ terrible _ wine.”

She took another sip. “This here is very good. Good wine.”

The women laughed and gossiped. Zelda tried to follow their stories, but Ganondorf was right. Her command of the desert language needed work. A  _ lot _ of work. 

Her limbs already grew heavy, and Zelda felt warm. It was a nice kind of warmth, not the singing heat of the desert sun.

_ Why is my cup already almost empty again? I haven’t drunk that much already, right? _

“Thirsty ilmaha forgets they are hungry,” chided Beytu, heaping more meat in Zelda’s bowl. With her fingers.

Zelda tried her best not to cringe. She smiled as brightly at Beytu as she could. “Well yes, sweet things are distracting, Beytu avadha Saiev.”

_ But she’s right - I am hungry. Very hungry. Drinking on an empty stomach can’t be wise, right? _ Zelda sat down her cup and started eating. She probably had to get used to Gerudo using their fingers - even not in their own bowls. 

When the meat was gone, she tried the grain. After that, she tried every other dish again. In between her cup became full again. The majir made her dizzy. 

And bold. 

“So. You said there were stories. About the Great Ganondorf? Right?” she whispered to Beytu.

“Vo’hei Ghed vo’ Ganondorf! Vo’hei Geld’o va chalut!” cried the others, raising bowls and cups in salute. Women from other groups looked their way, raising their own voices and cups in echo. The epithet rippled out through the room, and it didn’t seem to matter for the toast whether they held food or drink. No one waited for anyone else either - they consumed a portion immediately after they spoke.

Beytu savored a bit of spiced meat. “What stories of the Great Ganondorf, He Who Commands Murasa’s Legions with a Single Word, might raise the interest of our golden ilmaha?”

The woman who teased her about the toasting custom raised her cup. “Vo’hei Ghed Ganondorf, who cross the Sand in three day!”

“Vo’hei Ghed Ganondorf,” said a woman in red, speaking the Gerudo tongue with careful slowness for her benefit. “Defeated a moldorm queen at  _ nine _ .”

“Twenty by the time he won the Serpent Crown,” added the other one.

“Vo’hei Ghed Ganondorf, He Who Holds the Shuttle of Life,” said the other woman in blue.

“And wealth,” added the one in purple, but in heavily accented Hylian. “Great Ganondorf and Exalted Sun were first slaying molduga in thirty years, and he slew its mate also. Alone.”

“There is no lock our King cannot pick, no stone he cannot lift, no weapon he has not mastered,” said Beytu, picking out another slice of dripping meat. “Should he will the very mountains to move, the earth would dance to obey.”

Zelda looked around, somehow touched and strangely pleased by how the Gerudo women paid deference to their king. She wasn’t sure what the epithets actually meant - they surely derived from a different dialect. Maybe an older one. Another question for Dinauru, should the opportunity rise. She looked into her cup, pondering over what only the titles of stories already told her about Ganondorf.

He was skilled and magnificent and smart. When she heard about his victories, her heart lurched in pride, at the same time she felt like she hadn’t accomplished anything herself. 

_ I really need to ask him a  _ _ lot _ _ of questions.  _ A deep sigh escaped her lips.  _ Goddess Bright - am I missing **Ganondorf?** _

“Actually I... wondered about that story with the honey glass,” she said with a tiny voice. 

“Mmm. You would have to more specific, as there are  _ hundreds _ ,” said Beytu with a snort. “Your teacher won’t much appreciate you learning any of them. But. Perhaps it is well if we lift the hearts of our sisters, yeah?”

The other women made small noises of inquiry, curiosity piqued even as they resumed their dinners.

“It was in the place of the Thundering River and the Sister Stones and the Valley of the Shield-Drum where I once served beside the Exalted Nabooru,” said Beytu, the Gerudo language rolling from her tongue in a languid sort of drawl that reminded her of their King somehow. 

The other women giggled, and glanced toward the middle of the vast room. No one was paying them any particular attention, and Nialet wasn’t even in sight.

“Of course, she wasn’t Exalted yet. In those days she was merely a promising young Saiev, and I the elder in our division. It fell to me to assign the younger sisters their rotations,” Beytu continued, nibbling at bits of hot pickled melon. “Days passed, and Roc Bellosa summoned me. The ilmaha would be coming to us for the winter, and we would meet them at the Serpent's Spine to guard them the rest of the way. She told me under no circumstance was I to assign Nabooru to guard the fifth-year column, nor the fifth year sleeping quarters. No, she said, Nabooru must be rotated between the storerooms  _ at random _ .”

One of the women in red made a rude noise. “That is an insult to all Saiev. Such work is for the Ramal or young Varach.”

“So I said also, but Roc Bellosa was wiser than I. She reminded me that any Saiev objecting to her assignment must petition either her Roc or the council from whom all orders flow. I bowed then, but I did not look forward to handling the temper of our highborn sister. So I thought I would weave a third path, and assigned Nabooru to the seventh-year sword courts instead,” said Beytu, rolling her eyes at her past self. “The very next week brought me before Roc Bellosa again, for the Ramal and Kharish both reported small shortages in their inventories. I was certain it must be an error in their numbers, but I promised to double the guard assigned anyway. I did not move Nabooru.”

“Uh oh,” said the woman in pale purple. “Did the Roc really not know what you did? Or was she waiting for a chance of giving you harsher punishment than insubordination?”

Beytu shrugged. “She has ever been strict, and in those days our Exalted Sun was a cruel woman. I did not even think to fear their punishments, I was so used to them. My concern was for the many young Saiev in my care, and I rather dreaded making enemies among them if I did exactly as our Roc wished me to. But every week, the same reports. Never very much missing, and never the same things, until one night, he made a mistake.”

The women murmured interest, sitting forward to catch every word.

“Aha, you see? Even the Great Ganondorf was not born with his powers fully formed,” said Beytu, wagging her finger at them. “But his  _ appetite _ on the other hand-! What Roc Bellosa knew that I didn’t was the reputation of one  _ particular _ fifth-year, already apprenticed to the Great Rova, already the despair of the Kharish assigned to keep all the ilmaha fed. One night, as he untangled more and more of the storekeepers’ riddles, he stole a whole pot of courser honey.”

The women gasped, and someone said something about nine stripes. They all tittered in horror, leaving no doubt the theft of honey counted as a serious crime.

“Or rather - I should say he stole the honey  _ from _ the pot, leaving the pot itself behind, its seals intact. We didn’t know it had vanished for weeks after, because he used his magic to whisk it away into a pot marked for dried souring root, which is what we  _ thought _ had been stolen,” said Beytu. “Except. _I_ found a basket of the missing root slices hidden in an odd corner of the second terrace, overlooking the sword courts.”

Zelda almost forgot to eat. Without noticing, she’d scooted a little closer to Beytu. While her fingers at least found her food bowl sometimes, she practically hung at Beytu’s lips. Listening to a story about her friend at a young age felt somehow forbidden. Partly because the other women also shot glances around, giggling like young teenagers who talked about ‘adult’ business. 

Oh and what a story! Beytu certainly knew how to tell it. Soon, Zelda found herself gasping and ‘ooh’ing at the same time as the others.

Not that she wondered about Ganondorf’s appetite. She knew how huge he was. She didn’t know how big he’d been then, but she could imagine a bit of his hunger. Especially after yesterday, and especially since he also had been taught magic. Magic was  _ exhausting _ . 

She wanted to hear this story badly in his own words, longing for a friend to share mischief with. Not only by letter, but sitting side by side. Maybe even while eating stolen cookies from the kitchen.

How childish. 

How impossible. 

He was King now, and she still struggled to find her own place.

_But that's no reason to spoil the fun of the story for myself!_

“So you found his secret hideout? What happened next, Beytu avadha Saiev?” Zelda asked, scooting a bit closer still.


	7. Thunder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings in endnotes

Four more days passed much the same. She dug and carried soil from the oasis, she added hundreds of stones to the wall, she mixed lime plaster, she climbed to fill lanterns and deliver bushels of arrows. She tied a thousand fletchings, and she pulled a million voltfruit and pinpad thorns to help feed the compound.    
  
She gathered melons, and she sparred against spear-women. She ground barley and millet until her back became one long ache, and she fought red veils in pairs, four short staves to her one. She cleaned the paddocks, and she emptied barrels of arrows into the winter night until she could hit the wickerwork target shields half as well as the purple veils.   
  
On the seventh day of training, Nialet sent one of the unveiled servants to teach her the art of cleaving flint for firestrikes and reducing glowstone to powder. Beytu sat nearby as usual, but she was busy gossiping with a woman in blue. It would have been more interesting with about half as many euphemisms and some passing familiarity with the principals.

In the third hour of afternoon, the whole compound shook as with thunder, though she heard no sound at all. Beytu dropped her tools at once and snatched her spear with a curt order over her shoulder to stay. Gerudo poured from every room, veiled, deshabille, and everything in between. Every one of them filled their fists with bow and spear and sword, racing to fill orders only they knew.    
  
Nialet emerged from another garden, calmly wrapping herself in a green mantle. She ignored everyone else, stalking through the crowd and directly to the main gate. Four veiled marched up beside her, in varying states of correct uniform, spears and swords lowered as she threw open the heavy gates. 

On the far horizon, a great boiling black cloud rose from the dust. The ground trembled like the head of a drum. Frozen, Zelda stood still right where she’d struck the last glowstone, looking in direction of the smoke in the distance. If it was smoke. What could shake the earth like that and still make no sound?

_ It can’t be the Hylian army, right? It can't be father, coming to fetch me, pouring violence onto Gerudo lands. There is no evidence whatever that I went west! But everyone is grabbing arms - whatever waits out there, it **must** be bad.  _

Varesh emerged from nowhere, grabbing her arm with an unintelligible hiss. She didn’t try to reason or even argue, but Zelda had no doubt Varesh meant to drag her out of the garden before - whatever was about to happen, happened. Her heart clenched.  _ Should I really just retreat? Shouldn’t I be out there, trying to help? Would I - a mere ilmaha to them - even be of any help at all? But - if by any little chance this is father’s doing, I am the one who must stop this.  _

“Varesh, what’s going on? Please tell me! I can help,” she pleaded with the woman.

“It is not for ilmaha to be an arrow,” hissed Varesh, cupping her other hand around her far shoulder, turning her toward the central building, urging her to move faster.

Beyond the gate, the roiling, greasy black smoke cloud bloomed ever more vast - or perhaps ever larger. She thought she saw tiny silvery flashes in the darkness, but it could as easily be illusion. The mid-day heat did strange things to sunlight and reflections. 

The archers arrayed on the walls stood in silence, arrows splayed through their fists in the way Zelda had yet to master, bows held loosely, ready to raise in a blink.  Dread settled in her stomach when she saw them line up as if war was in front of their doors.

The red veils - including Beytu - divided in two columns of three, marching through the gate and forming an inverse flanking wedge on the other side. Nialet strode through the middle, stolid as a general, her green mantle billowing in the wind.

_ What if it **is** war? _

She needed to know what threatened the estate. She needed to know if it was something related to her. Maybe she wasn’t a Gerudo warrior, but she was trained in the arts of the Sheikah. Zelda knew how to be fast, stealthy and sneaky. 

_I could be out of the compound, have a look at the situation, and then decide what to do. If this is a danger I truly can’t help with, I’ll return immediately. If this is father’s doing, however…_

As soon as they were inside the house, Zelda waited for Varesh’s attention to slip to something else. She stepped back and into the shadows, using magic to blur her presence. 

“I’m sorry, Varesh,” Zelda whispered under her breath.

Within seconds, she vanished from sight, stealing herself out of the building. She didn’t have weapons, so she had to be extra careful. Maybe she could climb over the outer wall and find a good place to observe.

As she sprinted across the garden, she heard a muffled shriek behind her. Probably Varesh. A guard on the wall above turned, but she’d already reached the shadows of the colonnade. She raced up the stairs, but a babble of alarmed voices drew the attention of an archer. She turned, looking right past the shadow Zelda crouched in, no doubt a little sun-blind. There was no way to reach the walk without attention now - but she could see the bloom of black smoke staining the sky, and the trembling earth made the stairs seem to sway under her feet. 

Zelda held her breath, casting the spell again. She misjudged the drop to the sands on the far side of the wall, and landed in a graceless tangle that made her hands and knees sting. 

_ But what is a little pain when half a hundred knights pour from the darkness? _

Zelda bit her lower lip. Fear trembled through her, yet somehow all of this seemed very odd. It was clear there had to be magic involved. The shining riders were too silent. The hooves should have made much more noise, even on the sandy ground.

She couldn’t look directly at any one of them, no matter how she tried, her eyes slid away. She could only catch frightening details in disjointed fragments. Streaming plumes on their bright, closed helms. Sharp lances, dropped low for the charge. Banners that may as well have been stitched with a thousand tiny mirrors for all she could look at them in the afternoon sun. Heavy pauldrons, pointed boots, strange curved shields. Shining, colorless cloaks flagging behind them that she couldn’t say how long they actually were, for they both seemed ragged and somehow blurry in the wind and smoke.

Their horses stretched at full gallop, their bright teeth blindingly white as they ran open-mouthed. Their sharp hooves vanished in the dust cloud beneath them with every beat. Still, she heard no sound. 

Or rather, she heard the rush of wind, and the hiss of sand, and muffled thumps too soft and irregular to be from the riders. She stretched her ears, imagining for one mad heartbeat that she heard a cow lowing. Nialet did not  _ have _ cows. No one in the desert did. Somewhere in the highlands Gerudo shepherds wandered, but Zelda had yet to see them herself. 

She glanced towards the open gate, where six red-veils stood with their swords held ready. Nialet stood just past their inverse wedge, braced wide, arms crossed over her chest, the green mantle billowing behind her. All of them stared fixedly at the shining, silent riders - who moved faster than any horse she’d ever seen. They were already well within bowshot -  _ I should know! _ The archers stood ready, but did not raise their bows. Did not nock and fire at this terrifying cavalry or the flock of dark birds flying in their wake. Another few moments and they would surely trample the women outside the walls.

But - they should be pulling up, or tightening their formation, or peeling away to loop back to form a column behind the lead with his vast horned helm or most of them would ride right into the walls too. The gates are barely wide enough for two horses to trot abreast!

_ Also, the Gerudo are much too calm for the threat of a small army charging at their gates. _

Closing her eyes, she invoked her magic senses, stretching them carefully towards the riders. It was hard to adjust her search, as she didn’t know what to look for exactly. Some trickery, sure. Something magical, of course. But what was it? 

Horses  _ could _ be enchanted to make no sound. Or the riders could be an illusion, a distraction. Zelda decided to try examining the kind of magic on them. All she got was a vague feeling of… familiarity, yet somehow warped and shadowed in a way she just couldn’t tell where she’d encountered it before. To her magic sight, they almost looked like they wore Hylian armor, but at the same time it didn’t feel right.

She prodded a little more, yet except for sensing a blurry, moving kind of _ something, _ she didn’t gather any more knowledge. Clearly, either her training or her magic or both were not refined enough. It made her angry that all the things she’d  _ mastered _ were entirely useless now. 

She tried to look at the riders again with her eyes, but the blinding reflections were still unbearable.  _ Yelling the names of twenty generations of kings and queens of Hyrule at the cloud certainly won’t help anyone. AllI can do is - cower at the foot of the wall and watch from the shadow what happened. Bear witness to whatever this is. _

The lead rider corrected their angle, urging their mount faster. They stood in their stirrups - and thrust their lance through Nialet’s chest. 

Zelda’s scream echoed from the wall and was swallowed by the sand. She’d already lurched from her observing point, begging the Goddesses for swiftness. 

Zelda saw the shining tip exit her back. Saw her mantle whipping around that deadly spike. Saw the shining hooves stretching out to trample her body into the sand. 

With her heart beating far too fast, Zelda stumbled, sand stinging her bare hands. Above her, the creak and hum of bowstrings pulled. The only weapon  _ she _ had was a short curved knife in her sash, and herself.  _ Which isn’t much. _

The lead rider exploded in a shower of - paper?

A sack of -  _ onions _ ? - hit the sand with a heavy thoomp, scattering the papery bulbs at Nialet’s feet.

Now she stopped dead, staring at the rolling things.  _ I don’t understand anything - except Nialet is still standing. Somehow.  _

Ahead of her, the next rank of riders crashed over Nialet and the red veiled women. Rank after rank, charging, thrusting, trampling, vanishing in a cloud of paper and dust and muffled thumps.

Through the haze, she could just barely see a hint of green. The last rider galloped into the dustcloud - which oddly enough gave forth an offended  _ moo _ .

The earth rumbled still, and the dark cloud of smoke and sand veiled the sun.

A shout above.

The sands erupted in a blur of enormous teeth and spikes and iridescent chiten that kept going up - and up - and  _ up _ .

Red veiled women dashed from the cloud of dust and floating paper to slash at the segmented body. They sprinted forward, lunged, and dashed back into cover.

She couldn’t hear anything. Not the echo of her scream. Not the rumble of the ground, not the clang of steel, not the snap and zing of the arrows flying above her head. Not one shriek or click or hiss from the monstrous creature. 

Nothing. Absolute silence reigned.

Zelda could not persuade her body to move this time. She knelt in the sand, watching in horror as the giant faceless  _ thing _ attacked the compound. Black-and-orange rocs dove into the fray, swooping towards the walls. A dead roc thumped to the sand an arm’s reach away, one white-and-blue fletched arrow skewering it neatly. 

A bright flare above, and the next volley of arrows struck the monster with a crash of silent lightning. White-gold light crawled over the massive spiked body, making it thrash and seize in the air. 

Another volley, sour with sulphur and bombflower oil. These arrows hit in a neat column of red-orange explosions, marching up the shining chitin well above the warriors’ heads. 

The monster fell, shaking the earth with the impact. Women in red and purple and even blue raced toward the body with swords and spears, severing the lowest segments from the rest. The monster thrashed and burrowed headfirst into the sand, splattering brown ichor everywhere.

Zelda heard the sliding hiss of it burrowing. The faint cry of the Gerudo. The rumble of four small hills of sand racing toward the compound gate, where the dust began to thin.

The smaller monsters burrowing in the wake of the colossal one screamed when they broke through to the air, their whole head nothing but teeth. These stood no taller than the warriors, and they lacked the brilliant colors of the larger one. Lightning raced down from the walls to stun them, and the red veils fought to sever their heads as the world fell silent again. 

The first monster burst through the sand, ichor and blood dripping from its fangs. Each curving white spike was easily as long as a sword, but the warriors showed no fear whatever. Over and over they pelted it with arrows and stabbed at it with blades, until at last the rancid carcass twitched in pieces.

Through the ringing collapse of the weird - and probably magical - silence, the Gerudo lifted their voices in a chilling war cry. Zelda heard the creak and snap of one more arrow launched into the sky. She followed its arc, vaguely surprised when it struck empty sand farther than  _ she’d _ ever sent an arrow without magic to help it along.

A heartbeat later, lightning arced down from the hazy sky, reflecting off a half dozen spears on the ridge beyond. At this distance she couldn’t really see who held them, just vague lumps of riders wearing the colors of the desert. If she squinted, she could just make out the stocky bodies and short legs of boar under them. At this distance, a horse and rider would hardly seem more than a blurry, irregular lump. 

These boar had to be larger than anything she’d ever seen. 

But for some reason - they did nothing. They milled about on the ridge for a few minutes, as if debating when and how to charge, then rode away. 

Zelda heard the cow again. And the rattle of copper bell. When she sought the source of the noise, she saw the dust at the gate beginning to dissipate. In the middle, Nialet, her green mantle billowing still, her right hand wrapped around the bright nose-ring of a glossy white cow. Incongruous green tassels danced from the gold-sheathed tips of her horns, and she wriggled her ears at the strange red-haired human who kept her from doing - well, whatever it was cows wanted to do. 

Women in white and blue and purple and green poured through the gates, bending in the dustcloud. When they stood again, every one of them hefted a sack or firkin or lidded basket, lugging it back into the compound.

The red veils milled about, prodding the monster carcasses, talking in low tones. No one seemed to notice her. 

At first. 

Varesh stumbled through the gates, fists pulling at her -  _ unbound? _ \- hair. Her babbling sobs carried to Zelda’s long ears as she flung herself to her knees beside Nialet. The cow lowed again. Nialet shook her head. Varesh cupped her empty hands in the air - Nialet shook her head again, and raised her free hand to point directly at Zelda. 

Varesh twisted to look where she pointed, cried out something that sounded like a prayer, and folded herself small as a stone in the dust at Nialet’s feet.

Nialet did not even look at her. 

Suddenly, Zelda felt terribly sorry. There could only be one reason Varesh was so upset: the “golden ilmaha” she was supposed to look out for vanished in the battle. Yet Zelda could not bring herself to feel regret. All she’d thought of was the safety of the Gerudo after all.

Slowly, Zelda came to her feet. She was not looking forward to the scolding she’d probably get for running away. But Nialet had clearly seen her anyway, and it was her own fault.

_ If I hadn’t been so surprised by the horrendous spectacle of Nialet almost dying, I could have easily slipped back into the compound unseen. Probably. _

With a strange feeling in her gut, she approached Nialet and Varesh. The closer she came, the better she got a look at the things lying in the dust. Vegetables. Rice. Wheat. Cheese. Wool. Soap. Wax. Bundles of firewood and sacks of charcoal.

All of it with Hylian labels. 

_ Who sent all of this? Why the show of blades and armour and shadow cloud? Why the faceless monsters with teeth like sabers? The silence? _

She didn’t understand anything. 

_ Would Varesh have been punished if I’d been hurt or killed? Would Varesh be punished now, even though I’m fine?  _ Zelda took a knee beside the cowering woman, touching shoulder ever so slightly. “I’m sorry, Varesh avadha Kharish. I  _ had _ to know.”

Varesh shivered, and said nothing, cupping Nialet’s ankle in her hands.

“In forty years, I have only known _one_ other ilmaha as headstrong, arrogant, and reckless as you to survive long enough to seek their Name,” said Nialet. “The laws of the desert are woven as they are for a reason, Sheik. To break them invites Death Herself to feast. _You are not in Hyrule anymore._ If any of us are going to survive your training and Trials, you must learn to listen to the avadha my King has seen fit to appoint as your guardians and teachers. In  _ one winter _ I am ordered to drill into you lessons that our ilmaha begin the day they first crawl and continue until the day the Elder Mothers judge them strong enough, wise enough, and brave enough to answer the call of the Sands.”

Zelda looked up to Nialet. Her heart grew heavy. “I’m not  _ reckless _ , and I’m  _ not _ arrogant! There was good reason for me to have a look at the attackers. I did not leave Varesh’s side because I was  _ curious _ or because I  _ wanted _ to invite death.”

The other veiled women sheathed or shouldered their weapons, picking up the last things from the dust. They ignored her. For days  she’d followed every order. She’d not complained, she’d not even asked many questions. 

_ Now I wonder if I should even be here. Should I really put this burden onto Nialet’s and Varesh’s shoulders? Endanger the whole compound just because I want to find my Name? He said the Mother of Sands would hear my petition - but is it really okay that I should do this at all? _

Her shoulders sagged. “I would like to explain myself to you in private, please.”

“It is better if you do not,” said Nialet with a shake of her head, turning to look down at her with a frightening solemnity. “The Great Ganondorf gives no order without reason, and I - you are young, and you are Hylian. How can you understand? The punishment which must attend my failure to protect  _ Sheik _ from a moldorm queen and her brood is not something for the ears of an ilmaha, no matter who you were before you crossed our border.”

The words echoed in her burning ears: the Great Ganondorf gives no order without reason.

_ Of course I trust my old friend - but is it right to place the burden of keeping me safe and hidden on his shoulders? On those of his subjects, who cannot refuse his command? The enchanted knights **must** have something to do with him, somehow - but is it really right to oblige him to distract whatever force must eventually come to look for me? _

“You did protect me. As you can see, I am unharmed. I apologize for bringing trouble to your house, Nialet avadha Davayu. I shall do my best to follow the laws of the Sands in the future.” Zelda bowed, and with a last glance towards Varesh, she picked up a sack of something from the dirt, and turned to carry it into the compound with all the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for violence, peril, and icky bug things.


	8. Histories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s a little late this month! We had to do a fourth revision pass when we realized the word count for this chapter was... very high. Having a little more distance from the drafting stage helped us see that we had two separate arcs in the chapter, and trimming it off to work into next month’s post will make both stronger. 
> 
> Thanks for bearing with us, and we hope you enjoy!

Zelda paced the length and breadth of her room, stalking from shadow to light and back again. After a week of hard training, it felt strange to be inside and idle this early in the day. She’d carried half a dozen sacks into the main courtyard, and once Nialet led the cow inside, she’d helped load the provisions into underground storerooms she’d never seen before. 

Half the sacks and crates in those hidden cellars bore Hylian labels, and the crests of dozens of different estates. Even at home, most of the royal larders were stocked by estates within a day or two of the city. The civil war had dragged trade down to almost nothing, raising import prices beyond the reach of anyone without both a title and extensive holdings. No one wanted to risk losing a caravan to monsters or deserters or bandits or-

Zelda paused at the window, looking out over the deserted garden below. At home, everyone called the Gerudo  _ thieves _ . Nor did anyone here deny it. In fact - most of the women seemed to encourage  _ her _ to learn how to steal. 

_ What if all of that food - and the cow - today was stolen? What can it mean that a legion of enchanted knights filled the storerooms with looted Hylian goods? _

The war began long before she was born, but every few years someone would propose a truce. Negotiations would draw out, endless droning council meetings would argue over the contracts, and in the end  _ someone _ would find an excuse to reignite hostilities. Like a dead grandparent or a stolen cow.

_ Or - a stolen princess? _

Zelda resumed pacing.  _ No, however much I might wish to seek the desert oracle, if father has raised the war banner again I can’t continue putting these people in danger. Not without some assurance that this was all some terrible misunderstanding.  _

_ Hopefully mine, so I can fix it. _

She wedged another pillow into the strangely wide chair and pried the cork from the heavy ink bottle. Her father would never understand. Nialet didn’t  _ want _ to understand.  _ How could I ask Varesh to even try after scaring her so badly today? But - Dinauru also carries the burdens of leadership. He understands the need to know, to control the circumstances, the rules of the game. The need to be perfect. The need to win.  _

_ But can I trust him? _

A knock at the door interrupted her seventh attempt to rephrase her worries about the knights. Zelda laid aside the beautiful brush, along with her frustration with her attempts to write legible Hylian with absolutely the wrong instrument. Though the worry still nagged at her, her mood lightened when she pulled the door open and Beytu pressed a jar and a few rounds of warm, fragrant flatbread into her hands. 

“I advise you sit down for this, kitten.”

Those few serious words from the sardonic old Gerudo woman sounded ominous.  _ Maybe Beytu is here to scold me? Or lecture?  _ Zelda put everything on the small table and fetched more cushions for Beytu’s sofa, her stomach aflutter.

She perched on the wide chair near the older woman, offering some of the bread to her first. “I sit and I listen, Beytu avadha Saiev.”

Beytu nodded, ignoring the bread and lacing her fingers together around one knee. “Nialet is my cousin. I love her, yes? But. To truly understand her, you must understand more about the desert than I have time to teach you, and more about growing things than I ever learned. So I will not try to explain why she is - the way she is. Our ways are different than yours. What seems correct and polite and obvious to you now will get you killed out here. If not the sands, then the wind. If not the beasts, then your enemy.”

“Yes, life is - very different here,” agreed Zelda cautiously, sniffing at the contents of the jar. _Majir. Of course._

“What happened today - look, when an ilmaha makes a mistake, or takes a small hurt through clumsiness or pride or weakness? We do not see it, so it is not woven. Do you understand? No thread means anything until it is woven. If we do not see you stumble, it is not woven into your pattern, and it can be changed,” said Beytu, her eyes searching Zelda’s face for understanding. She sighed, making a face as she lowered her head. “I am not the right person to explain this - but I am what you have. And I have lived my pattern already. I have nothing to fear.”

The memory of Ganondorf ignoring her stumbling along beside his massive horse teased at her mind. A week full of a hundred tiny moments of despair when no one offered help or comfort or even a kind word while she struggled, and failed.

Zelda nibbled her lower lip, frowning.  _ I can see this is your pattern - that what I understood as cruelty and indifference is your idea of manners - but I cannot agree with it. How can you ‘unweave’ what happened by ignoring it? If someone got hurt, they got hurt. And you certainly don’t correct it by not seeing it.  _

“I’m glad I have you,” Zelda mumbled. “My mistake cannot be unseen. Is this what you mean?”

Beytu chewed her lip, drawing a slender copper flask from a hidden pocket in her sirwal. “Not yours.  _ Hers _ . She must answer to the King for your welfare and education, and her inability to protect you from your own naïveté. Varesh begs her to say nothing and let _her_ bear the punishment instead, as it was her inattention that allowed you to leave the safety of the walls. It  _ may _ be that he loves Varesh enough to discipline her more lightly. But Nialet loves them both too much to betray either. His gift of the milk cow and the Nayru’s Quill roots - these are a measure of his trust in her, the great things he expects to see when he returns. The real reason you have no lessons today, kitten, is not because she punishes you, but because this  _ could _ be her last night this side of the veil if he learns of this from his shadow servants. She needs time to prepare her spirit, and to mourn.”

Zelda paled. “Are you speaking of a possible _death_ _sentence_ for _her_ for something _I_ did? Why did no one ever care to explain your laws to me? Does everyone here think I can absorb them merely by observing?”

“Kitten, we  _ are _ trying to teach you,” began Beytu.

“So, if other ilmaha stumble or hurt themselves out of pride or arrogance, all of you can look away.” Zelda stood to pace the beautiful room, unable to remain still and serene as a princess ought.  _ But I am not princess here-! _ . “But because I am here by order of the Great Ganondorf and slipped away, Nialet could  _ die _ ? Just because I wanted to find out if the danger for the compound was my fault? That is -  it’s-”

“Kitten. What you did today wasn’t  _ just _ anything.”

She drew a shaky breath, rubbing her hands over her face to disguise the angry tears welling up in her eyes.  _ I should have never stayed. I should have known my silly, selfish request would only bear trouble in one way or another. Some ilmaha I am, wanting to find my Name in the Sands when I’m not even fit to live among the People.  _ “There must be something I can do. Is there absolutely no way for me to plea for the King’s mercy? Take the punishment upon myself?”

“Ilmaha are not permitted to petition the King - and even if you could, how can the student ever answer for a failure of the teacher? We are all trying to help her compress the lessons of twelve years into twelve  _ weeks _ , and we cannot waste time on reading you laws you don’t yet have basis to understand. It is the decree of our King that you  _ must _ survive the trials. If you had taken even a small wound out there today, we would  _ all _ be atoning for it,” said Beytu, drawing the cork from her flask and taking a small sip. She shook her head, watching Zelda pace for a moment.

“How can that be  _ any _ different from scraping my hands on stone walls and bleeding over pinpad thorns and nearly fainting from hunger because nobody told me breakfast would be nothing but thin green soup?” Zelda cried.

“None of  _ that _ was deadly, and if you have not seen how my sisters guard your back while you find your path,  _ you are not paying attention. _ Monsters are drawn to magic like moths to flame. We felt the spirit roads open, but ill luck woke a moldorm queen. We all felt it, but there was no  _ time _ for the kind of explanation you crave. Even the best hunters cannot anticipate how many are in her nest, nor where or when she will surface, and we haven’t had  _ time _ to teach you about the creatures of our lands yet. The only safe place is on stone they cannot chew through,” said Beytu, gesturing towards the central building. “Varesh would have taken you to a window in Nialet’s rooms if you’d waited for her to bolt the doors first. And knowing her, she would likely have defied his orders and answered your questions in our tongue too. But  _ no _ \- you  _ had _ to see from the open sands, in reach of anything that might have followed the scent of the King’s benevolence, and you showed  _ fear _ before the spirit warriors!”

Zelda stopped in her tracks, dread and guilt filling her stomach once again. The enchanted knights  _ weren’t _ harmless after all.  _ If Nialet had been afraid, if she’d allowed my shout to distract her, would that spirit lance have killed her?  _

“Thank the Mother you had the sense to sit  _ still _ once the moldorm broke into the open - they can feel movement through the ground. This would have been a lesson for later, when we could be sure you had built the strength and swiftness to face a juvenile safely. But you have made it painfully clear Nialet does not command enough respect from you or her people to fulfill the King’s orders in letter or in spirit.”

_ Reespect for my teacher is entirely separate from my **very good reason** to be out there! _ But the guilt pricked her nonetheless.

_ And maybe, if I’d not been so rash,  would have been enough to observe from the compound. Maybe it was arrogant to just go, my faith in my skills as Sheikah trainee too big. _

_ I can’t change any of it now. It is woven.  _ She felt suddenly very tired. “I wasn’t scared  _ of  _ the warriors, I was scared  _ for  _ Nialet.” 

“But why would she who walks in Farore’s grace and wears shields woven by the King himself fear any harm from his servants?” Beytu shook her head in confusion. 

“I  _ didn’t _ know this was his magic. I just saw a huge cloud of darkness and shining knights charging at Nialet,” Zelda snapped. She felt awful and dumb.  _ Nor did I feel the ‘spirit roads open’. How could I study all my life and yet know so little?  _

Beytu sighed, contemplating the flask in her hands.

And then there was still one other thing. “So by decree of The King I must survive the trials... and if I don’t, will he punish all of you?”  _ Would Ganondorf  _ _ really _ _ do that? Would he be that cruel? Is that really the way of the Sands? _

“If he does not, your father will,” said Beytu calmly. “The Great Ganondorf wields both shuttle and blade - and has since long before we knew him as our prince. For myself and my sisters, I had prefer his mercy to your father’s retribution, Princess.”

_ Princess. _

“So you know.” Zelda shouldn’t be surprised, but she was. With lead in her stomach and ice blooming in her veins, Zelda sank back into her chair. What she really wanted was to cry.  _ It is so nice here. I enjoyed learning more about Gerudo culture and the desert and training.  _

“I suspected,” said Beytu, hitching one shoulder and looking at her flask. “Most of my sisters believe he stole you from some rapacious lowland petty king, but there will be other rumors tomorrow.”

_ Nialet, Beytu, Varesh - they aren’t stupid. Their King came barging in with some foreign Hylian brat, demanding they prepare this foreign stranger for their sacred Trials. Of **course** it wouldn’t be just some random Hylian ilmaha. Of course it was safe to assume it was a highborn person. Not necessarily the princess of Hyrule, sure, but whom had I  even tried to deceive? _

_ Myself, most of all. _

_ But with so many lives at stake, I just can’t stay. _ “You’re right. I’m the Princess. I guess it was naive to think I could be anything else.”

Beytu winced, lifting her flask for a meditative pull. She rolled the liquor over her tongue, eyes wandering as she considered her words. “Long before an ilmaha seeks their Name, they dream of what they hope to find on the spirit roads. Part of why we cannot tell you about the Trial of Sands is our law, but our law is woven thus because every ilmaha faces a different challenge. Some avadha choose to share their story with dear sisters, but never with ilmaha, lest they enter the Sands with dangerous expectations. A weaver will surely die on a path meant for a Saiev, and an archer will likewise fail a test for a Kharish. If the ilmaha do not know what form their test might take, they are less likely to go against the true yearning of their spirit when the paths branch. Crown Princess of a fair and prosperous country, blessed by the Golden Three, heir to the Red Lion Throne, beloved by her subjects, favored by the King and Protector of the Geld’o, Sheik, child of Shadows - what do you dream of finding in the Lady’s Hands?”

“Myself,” said Zelda, gesturing desperately. 

Beytu folded her hands around her flask. “And who is that?”

“How should I know? I was  _ raised _ to be The Princess,” she cried. “Stitching, spinning, history, politics, manners, correspondence,  _ smiling _ for the love of the Light! Being pretty and smart and eloquent and devout and pure. Wearing dresses. How to walk in a twenty-foot train. The right prayers to say and the right day to say them on and the right shrines to say them in to strengthen the Light, to become ever more  _ Princess _ . The only thing I ever sought for myself was to train in the Sheikah arts of my governess and bodyguard. That's why I wanted a Name, Beytu. To find something that is my own. That is related to  _ myself _ .”

“Then why do you punish Nialet for giving you exactly what you desire? From the moment the Great Ganondorf delivered you to her hands, she set aside her own heart to prune away the dead wood of this idol you do not wish to be, breaking down the smothering habits and unconscious expectations of rank and title you absorbed in your country. Every time you flinch away from her healing knife, she bleeds, whether you have spirit eyes to see it or not,” said Beytu stretching out her free hand in a wordless plea for understanding. “Our King ordered her to reverse the course of fifteen years of Hylian poison and work a heroine’s miracle in one season, and for love of her King, for the hope of peace and prosperity, knowing the price of failure, she has tried.”

“I - because I thought that it could be my father’s army in front of the gate and no matter what  _ your _ King ordered, I cannot stand aside and watch all of you suffer because I came here. I needed to  _ know _ .” Zelda rubbed the heels of her hands over her burning eyes. 

Beytu clicked her tongue in censure. “Even as you say you want free of your golden cage, you cling tighter to it.”

“I’m sorry. It was stupid. It was rash,” said Zelda, fighting tears. “I don’t want to punish Nialet. I don’t want these sacrifices of her either. Yes, I want guidance, I want Nialet’s teachings. Yes, I want to learn my Name - but if it is  _ that _ great a burden to others, how can I be selfish any longer?”

“Then you must fortify your spirit and complete the Trials you’ve begun,” said Beytu. “Run back to Hyrule now, and not only will you seal her failure in stone, your crown will become a noose for your country. How do you expect to lead your people if you cannot even lead yourself? How will you even lead  _ yourself  _ if you don’t know where you’re going?”

Zelda looked away.  _ For Beytu the way seems clear. For me, everything is a mess. If I stay, the consequences of failure in the Trials will be dire. For me, for Nialet, for everyone. _

_If I stay, father will sooner or later bring terror to these lands. If I leave, again someone else will have to bear punishments for my decision._

_ Your crown will become a noose.  _

_ Who asked me if I even wanted that crown? _

_I wanted this. But if Ganondorf just **told** me how much of an impact my decision would have, I would have chosen otherwise! Now all that remains is to bear the consequences of it, whether I want them or not._

__

“Fine. I shall follow Nialet’s teachings to the bitter end. But I will make it clear to your King that she  _ cannot _ be punished if I fail the Trials. To expect the impossible of someone and then punish their failure is unacceptable. But if Nialet does not survive her King’s judgement on the moldorm attack, I  _ will _ return to Hyrule and there  _ will _ be _consequences.”_

__

Beytu worried her lower lip, and drank from her flask, and watched the afternoon sunlight drift across the floor. When she spoke, her quiet words rolled forth in the cadence of a storyteller.

__

“Long ago but maybe yesterday, near the place of the Lady’s Quiver and the swift river, a plague came among the People. The wise and the blessed worked to ease the suffering and keep the fever and the cough and the terrors from spreading. Moon-kissed elders sighed, and lit spirit lamps, and the People mourned the lost ones, for this is the Pattern,” she said, hand tightening around the little flask. 

__

Zelda knew about that plague. Dinauru wrote about this in the first letter he ever sent. It wasn’t until years after the letter had reached her that she’d actually read it herself - mostly, because at that time she’d been too little to really understand. She remembered the silent Kokiri who brought it, and her jealousy when her mother caressed the spirit-child’s golden hair. Her mother sat with her in the garden, gently insistent that  _ this  _ letter to the Blessed Princess be answered immediately. 

__

Her mother had written those early replies in her stead. 

__

“One ilmaha defied the Pattern, and the Law, and the plague, seeking to unravel this design at any cost. And  _ such _ cost it was, in blood and hunger and shame. Even so, nothing cures the red cough. The sickness settled inside their closest companion, and the healers took them away to the plague house. The ilmaha followed, sneaking past the guards to give their friend poisoned sweets, and lay down beside them, holding them as they died,” said Beytu, her eyes unfocused and distant. Her voice never wavered, but in that moment she looked even older. No doubt whatever she was among the guards who discovered them. “The ilmaha was flogged and sentenced to the dungeons for months, and never even _one_ tear of regret or pain or fear. Three years later, he defeated a moldorm queen alone.  _ No one _ tells the Great Ganondorf what he cannot do.”

__

She rubbed her temples when Beytu finished the story.  _ I might have been pen friends with the Great Ganondorf for years, but I don’t really  _ **_know_ ** _ him, do I? Nothing about his powers or his sufferings or his people - not the important things. And now that I have endangered the lives of all these women? I get a story about my  _ **_friend_ ** _ , poisoning their best friend to end their suffering, taking all the terrible punishment with a stoicism that would shame a hundred knights. Defeating a moldorm queen alone at an age I lifted my first sword. _

__

“Thank you for your guidance,” said Zelda, though she could barely assemble words in any language. “If it is possible, I’d like to have solitude now.”

__

The older woman nodded, gathering herself to leave without another word. She bowed at the door like a servant, and pulled it shut behind her. _How rude it must be in their culture to send Beytu away._

__

_ But I need time to process what had happened today. And to build the courage to finish a letter. _

__


End file.
